We all know that crime doesn't pay - however, reports that a Taiwanese man has been arrested after selling fake amiibo cards suggest that the old maxim is a big fib. This unscrupulous individual had a variety of decidedly dodgy amiibo cards with full NFC functionality on sale for the tidy sum of sixteen New Taiwan dollars each (around 52 US cents). Check out the tweet from Chinese Nintendo below:

6,850 amiibo cards were fount on the spot. These cards were originally purchased online from China (Taobao) and each card was sold at NT $16 (US 52¢) pic.twitter.com/xq8nW1rDi5 February 11, 2019

The report suggests he purchased the lot in bulk from a Chinese website. We have to say, we've seen far worse in terms of production values with counterfeit gear and it's easy to see how less-knowledgeable gamers could confuse these for official products.

The man is reportedly in custody and these cards are now off the streets, but with nefarious duplication of NFC cards being so easy, it's perhaps this more than anything else which may be the fly in the ointment of our imagined Pokémon trading card/amiibo crossover.

Have you seen any of these shady cards in the wild? Does this scupper the chances of any meaningful amiibo implementation in the future? Let us know your thoughts below.