The Pokémon series has always encouraged players to take care of their Pokémon, raise them properly and defend them from the clutches of Team Rocket.
The Pokémon series does not suggest that you should genetically modify your Pokémon friends and then sell them for cash. Nintendo is also not particularly interested in you doing this.
Which brings us to today, and the arrest of a 23-year-old Japanese man for allegedly hacking and selling a Sobble.
Asahi News (via Kotaku) reports that the unidentified man was caught selling the modified Sobble to another player for 4400 yen (about £ 30), and later gave a confession.
But it goes beyond Sobble. The man, who is currently unemployed, reportedly made 1.1 million yen (about £ 8k) selling thousands of these modified creatures. That was probably what caught the attention of the authorities.
Today, the Japanese police proudly displayed the computer used to modify the Pokémon in question:
Last week, The Pokémon Company issued a harsh warning to hackers from Pokémon Sword, Shield and the Pokémon Home cloud storage service.
“We confirm that some users are playing Pokémon Sword Shield and Pokémon Home using illegally modified data,” the company wrote. “We will regularly monitor and respond to fraudulent and irritating acts so that our users can have fun with peace of mind. We look forward to your continued support for the Pokémon series.”