Manuela and her son Steven from Toulouse have filed legal complaints after their 80,000 euro Pokémon card collection built over twenty years vanished following a dispute with kitchen colleagues. The mother and son accuse former close friends of making the four binder collection disappear.
The complaints, which include civil party status for alleged theft and abuse of weakness, were submitted to public prosecution offices in Bourg-en-Bresse and Lons-le-Saunier by Toulouse lawyer Aurélien Serre. They follow months of failed attempts to recover the rare items.
Pokémon trading cards, created in Japan in the late 1990s, have evolved from a children's game into a high-value collector market where individual items trade for thousands of euros. Toulouse, located in southwestern France, is home to the family, where 59-year-old administrative university employee Manuela began assembling the cards in 2003.
Kitchen brigade friendship turns sour
The saga began in 2023 when Steven, then 21, took a job as a commis chef at a luxury hotel in the Vaucluse department of southern France after training at the Toulouse hotel school. He quickly bonded with three kitchen brigade colleagues: a chef couple roughly ten years his senior and executive chef Y., who had previously worked together at a prestigious restaurant in Cannes.
Their relationship soon expanded beyond the workplace, with Steven joining them on holiday. Manuela, who described her son as sociable but somewhat innocent and facing a few difficulties, said she felt he was safe and believed good people had taken him under their wing.
In 2024, the group relocated from Vaucluse to the Jura region near Geneva to work at a restaurant that had lost its Michelin star. Chef Y. aimed to regain the coveted culinary rating, and Steven followed his colleagues to the new establishment.
Financial ties and a sudden rift
By early 2025, financial dealings developed between Steven and C., one member of the chef couple. C. advanced money for Steven to travel to Florida and purchase a motorcycle. On July 29, 2025, Steven suffered a fractured vertebra in an accident, forcing him off work for four months before he resumed duties in November. During his recovery, he stayed at the couple's home and owed them approximately 3,200 euros, according to his mother.
The relationship broke down sharply in late November 2025 while Steven spent a few days in Lyon. He received a phone call from his friends reproaching him for seeing a young woman they disapproved of, ordering him to leave their residence and his job.
When Steven returned to collect his belongings, he found some items packed in trash bags, part of his computer equipment missing, and four large Pokémon card binders gone.
Two decades of card collecting
The missing collection represented a shared family investment spanning more than two decades. Manuela estimated that she had spent between 4,000 and 5,000 euros on cards since 2003, while Steven had spent more than 13,000 euros, supplemented by several thousand euros worth of gifts from family members for birthdays and holidays.
The family estimates the current total value of the binders at nearly 80,000 euros, noting that individual cards in the collection are worth several thousand euros each. Among the rarest items was a card signed by Ken Sugimori, the legendary illustrator and character designer for the Pokémon franchise. Manuela stated that the family retains receipts for a large portion of the purchases.
Failed cash hand-over and legal proceedings
After Steven attempted to retrieve the cards through local gendarmerie visits without success, Manuela intervened. On December 11, 2025, she left the Toulouse suburbs at 6 a.m. with 5,000 euros in cash, driving nearly seven hours to settle her son's reported debt. She met chef Y., who handed back computer equipment and personal effects but refused to return the cards.
Manuela showed the cash to prove she could clear the debt, refusing to leave with only part of her son's belongings. Chef Y. then told her that the cards had been thrown away. Retaining her cash, Manuela reported the incident to the gendarmerie.
In February 2026, Manuela retained lawyer Aurélien Serre. After two formal legal notices sent by Serre received no response, formal criminal complaints were lodged with prosecutors in Bourg-en-Bresse and Lons-le-Saunier. Speaking from his Toulouse office with white walls and dark parquet flooring, Serre pointed to inconsistencies in the suspects' accounts and highlighted the significant economic and emotional harm to his clients.
Steven now works as a chef in Corsica, though his mother describes him as less cheerful and more isolated. Manuela continues to see a psychologist to help cope with the ongoing distress, confessing she does not believe the four binders will ever be recovered.
