Police in New York are looking for a thief caught on video smiling after stealing $17,000 worth of Kobe Bryant trading cards from a Brooklyn building lobby.
According to police, the theft occurred on Monday, September 14, at approximately 2:00 p.m. inside a residential building in Manhattan Beach, close to West End Avenue and Shore Boulevard.
The thief took three collectible sports cards, which were wrapped inside multiple packages, according to the New York Post. They included rare basketball cards featuring the late NBA star and are valued at roughly $17,400. It was unclear whether the thief knew the Kobe Bryant cards were in the packages when he took them.
The criminal, dressed in an orange baseball cap, a sleeveless Brooklyn Brewery T-shirt, camo shorts, and flip-flops, was seen grinning on surveillance footage as he left the mailroom with the valuable trading cards.
To help identify the culprit, investigators have released images of him to the public. They are asking anyone with information to call the New York Police Department’s Crime Stoppers Hotline.
Thieves stealing valuable sports trading cards is nothing new
In August, burglars broke into Tom Brady’s new CardVault store, smashing its window and stealing dozens of trading cards just one week after it opened in Palo Alto, California.
The store was broken into at around 12:30 a.m. on a Saturday. The thieves broke in and destroyed several display cases, walking off with trading cards worth more than $12,000.
CardVault’s New York store in SoHo was also burglarized shortly after it opened in 2025, with nearly $10,000 in baseball and Pokemon cards reported stolen.