They say that it’s legal until you get caught. For an Aichi prefecture man in Japan, it just got more legal than he was counting on.

A 23-year-old man from Nagoya was arrested for running afoul of Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act after using external software to change the ability of a Pokémon (a shiny variant of Messon, called Sobble in English), and sold the Pokémon to a man in Kyoto for 4400 yen (about $42).

Wow, you can get that much money for shiny Pokémon? I’m sitting on some bank, and didn’t even cheat to get it!

The same man reportedly made 1,125,000 yen (about $10,000) in about a year’s time. Assuming the same rate, that comes to about 238 Pokémon sold.

Is anyone else considering selling some Pokémon to supplement their income? Imagine how much it would rock to buy a house with money made by selling Pokémon! Working to pull it off is taking way too long.

Of course, there are some I’d like to hold on to, like Kona, my shiny Alolan Raichu.

Nintendo has previously announced their intention on banning those using hacked data in Pokémon Sword/Shield, as well as Pokémon Home. Because the Pokémon franchise has taken on paid subscription-based elements (features in Pokémon Home, Sword/Shield’s use of Nintendo’s online service), Nintendo now has a more financial incentive to ensure that the Pokémon characters exchanged using their online services maintain their integrity. Otherwise, players wanting legitimate Pokémon may feel cheated, and may possibly discontinue their use of subscription-based services.

There’s also the point that if Nintendo wants the competitive aspects of Pokémon to be taken seriously, they cannot allow cheating. Considering that they live-stream their competitions to an international audience, there’s a lot at stake.

My shiny Lugia is kinda making me feel like a jet-setter.