Former Giants LB busted for alleged Pokemon scam
Blake Martinez was well on his way to potentially earning more with his post-football career than he did in the NFL.
However, his collectible and trading card company Blake’s Breaks suffered a massive blow over the weekend when the 29-year-old retired New York Giants linebacker was permanently banned from Whatnot, an online marketplace that specializes in collectibles, trading cards, sports memorabilia and comic books and more, for allegedly scamming customers.
Per The Athletic, $1B worth of sports cards were sold through the site. While Whatnot didn’t release any details about Martinez’s alleged wrongdoing, Reddit users claim his company was swapping high-value card packs for ones that had lesser value after selling them.
Popular Pokémon YouTuber “Rattle Pokémon” released an eight-part video series addressing Martinez’s alleged scam.
Although Martinez never technically admitted fault or fessed up to the allegations, he did address the situation in an Instagram live video.
"I understand the optics," he said. "I know the type of business I run. ... I made a good amount of money -- everybody knows, in the NFL -- (and) I knew stepping into this (I) was going to have a target on my back."
Martinez, who earned approximately $28.9 million from playing in the NFL, had made a reported $11.5M from buying and selling Pokémon cards in just under a year since his company’s launch.
He retired from the NFL in 2022 after he sold a rare Pikachu illustrator card for $670,000. Martinez also earned $108,000 through his first stream on Whatnot.
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