Update []: The City of London Police have "admitted in writing" that the search warrants executed on July 14th 2025 "explicitly allowed SEGA Europe Ltd and its private investigation contractor, Fusion85 Ltd, to enter a private home during a dawn raid," according to the claiming in this particular case.
According to the claimant, this practice is "fundamentally incompatible with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), longstanding case law (Entick v Carrington (1765)), and the European Convention on Human Rights."
The claimant adds:
“This is not speculation, it is the police’s own words. They have confirmed that SEGA and Fusion85 were written into the warrant and allowed inside my home during the raid. That is privatisation of policing in black and white. This is a Tier-1 governance scandal. SEGA and Fusion85 were unlawfully allowed into people’s homes under colour of law. The police have now admitted it themselves. Parliament and the courts must urgently address how this was ever possible.”
Original Story: We recently reported on the news that Sega used the British Police to recover a selection of dev kits and consoles it had "negligently disposed of" from a business owner who has a legitimate claim to those items.
Since we published that story, we've seen a huge reaction online from the retro gaming and game preservation communities.
The Video Game Preservation Museum – which was attempting to raise money to purchase some of the undumped GBA, DS, DSi, and 3DS games involved in the raid – took to social media to point out how dire the situation was for those interested in preserving and documenting game history.
"What we’re looking at is nothing less than a preservation disaster and a dangerous precedent for collectors, archivists, and the gaming community," says the VGPM. "We urgently need the support of the wider community to keep this story alive and visible. Share it, talk about it, question it. When private companies can call in the police to raid homes over discarded hardware, the stakes are bigger than any one publisher."
The VGPM hints that "this is only the beginning," and that "more information is coming, and the full extent of this scandal will soon be clear to everyone." It seems that some kind of funding drive to raise the cash for legal representation is also on the horizon.
Edit: A GoFundMe is now live.
Time Extension has remained in contact with the individual whose property was raided and can confirm that Sega is still refusing to speak to him regarding the whereabouts of the systems he paid for.
Furthermore, in correspondence with the City of London Police seen by Time Extension, the seller is, at one point, asked to sign away property rights. However, a second message contradicts that by denying he ever owned the items.
Edit: The VGPM has published some documents relating to this case:
"If everything is as seen,” the seller tells us, "then every safeguard designed to stop the police from abusing their powers has failed. From SEGA to the police to the courts, every institution has closed ranks."
He adds that judicial review proceedings are ongoing, but the case is already being described as a "test of whether the rule of law still applies when a global corporation is involved."
At the time of writing, we still haven't heard back from Sega's UK office.