Key Takeaways

A San Mateo card sshow vendor recognized a rare anime card from a Facebook theft warning and alerted security, leading police to recover it.

The owner lost the card in July after a buyer promised $30,000 but handed over only a few hundred dollars before fleeing.

Police arrested 44-year-old Constantin Nitescu on theft-related charges and said he had previously tried to sell the card in two other cities.

A vendor working a trading card convention in San Mateo, California, over the weekend was handed a rare anime card to appraise and realized he had seen it before—in a Facebook post warning collectors about a $30,000 deal gone wrong.

KRON 4 reports that on Monday (Oct. 26), police were called to the San Mateo Event Center after security detained the man who tried to make the sale.…