On March 21st, 2009, the Nintendo World store in New York City held a Pokémon Platinum Launch Event to celebrate the game's release. However, flyers were distributed around Nintendo World stating that attendees can receive a Mystery Gift, which turned out to be a hacked shiny Gengar caught in a Safari Ball, with its nickname being a racial slur used against black people. Its moves were based on black stereotypes consisting of Thief, Sucker Punch, Sludge Bomb, and Snatch along with the Truant ability. The flyers that were distributed around Nintendo World turned out to be a Photoshop edit of the original flyer that didn't specify any Mystery Gift being given out to attendees at all. The Photoshopped flyers were intended for an unrelated unofficial distribution of an Eevee that was also occurring at Nintendo World. The people distributing the Eevee quickly stopped their distribution when security questioned them about the racist shiny Gengar, as two wi-fi signals were detected at Nintendo World. Reports have speculated that an overweight African-American man dressed as a common Team Rocket grunt was solely responsible for the hacked shiny Gengar distribution, and that he was later arrested by police. Nintendo issued an apology regarding the controversy stating that anyone should refrain from downloading the hacked Mystery Gift Pokémon to avoid any data corruption.