Controversial YouTuber and celebrity boxer Logan Paul has never hidden his love for the Pokémon franchise.
In fact, he even wore a roughly $150,000 Charizard card around his neck as he entered the ring to fight boxing legend Floyd Mayweather.
However, it looks like Paul’s luck has finally caught up with him.
Back in December, Paul purchased what he thought was a roughly $3.5 million box of sealed first-edition Pokémon cards. Paul is known for opening sealed packs of Pokémon on his YouTube channel, so this move wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, though at the time, it was the most expensive Pokémon card purchase in history.
However, it appears that at least one of the boxes he ordered featured GI Joe trading cards and not Pokémon cards. “G.I. JOE? It could’ve been anything else…” says Paul during the video, seen above. Several notable Pokémon card collectors and fan sites weren’t surprised by this turn of events following reports from several weeks ago that Paul’s haul of cardboard pocket monsters could be entirely fake.
In the YouTube video, Paul opens the box at a Chicago hotel with the men who authenticated the cards for him. The person who initially purchased the box for $2.7 million and later sold it to paul for $3.5 million is also present in the hotel room. After the box is opened, the owner of the authentication company claims “we all got duped.” Another individual is heard saying “this is the biggest fraud in the entire history of Pokémon.”
just dropped $3,500,000 on this sealed & authenticated box of 1st Edition Pokémon cards ? pic.twitter.com/rMY2bVnKV2
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) December 20, 2021
It’s unclear if Paul plans to get his money back from the authentication company or if he’s set to take action against the original seller. There’s also a strong possibility that this could be an elaborate stunt to get views given the social media celebrity’s history.
Since Paul’s video about purchasing the cards went live on January 13th it has already amassed nearly 3 million views, so if the supposed duping was an elaborate plan to garner views, it’s clearly working.
Source: YouTube (Logan Paul)