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Man sentenced to prison after using Covid relief loan to buy rare Pokémon card

Hand holding gold metal Pokemon card from a 25th Anniversary Celebrations Ultra Premium Collection
Hand holding gold metal Pokemon card from a 25th Anniversary Celebrations Ultra Premium Collection
DEVON RAVINE/DAILY NEWS / USA TODAY NETWORK

People using their Covid relief funds for something other than helping their small businesses is nothing new, but we can't recall someone using those funds on something like this.

A man was recently sentenced to prison, after it turns out he used one of those loans to buy a rare...Pokémon card.


Like many of us, 31-year-old Vinath Oudomsine, was awarded an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) for $85,000 after he claimed to own a small business that supported 10 employees.

Well, once Oudomsine obtained the loaned, he used $57,789 of it to buy a rare Pokémon.

According to Polygon, a similar Charizard card with this matching description, a first-edition, shadowless, and holographic card with a 9.5 gem mint rating, was sold at the PWCC marketplace for that price in late December.

Unfortunately, Oudomsine was found out, and was arrested for misappropriating the Covid relief loan for the purchase of the card.

Oudomsine was sentenced to 36 months in prison, and U.S. district court judge Dudley H. Bowen also ordered him to pay $10,000 on top of the $85,000 in restitution.

Oudomsine has also agreed to turn the Charizard card over to prosecutors.

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