Man Sues After $60,000 Pokemon Card Gets Lost In The Mail

A man shelled out $60,000 for a “priceless, rare” piece of pop culture history — a single Pokemon card — and is now suing because it vanished from a Queens shipping depot. Pokemon-loving plaintiff Marwan Alkhaja, 38, of Dubai says in his Brooklyn federal-court suit that he bought the “Trainer No. 3’’ card online from a US seller on eBay in November 2018. The card was never sold as part of a pack on the open market but only given out as the prize to the third-place finalist of a Japanese competition called Super Secret Battle in 1999. Alkhaja is seeking $150,000 in his suit, which includes the $60,000 he paid for the card, lawyers’ fees and “special damages’’ for being treated in a “reckless or willful disregard.’ “These are like actual Olympic medals — but rarer than that,’’ said Scott Pratte, a collector close to Alkhaja. Pratte said his pal sees collecting as both a hobby and investment, spending “millions’’ on the cards.