The Tale of the Stolen TB12 SB51 Jersey

[Deadpulse]

Some background info here. I am sitting at the dinner table and my father, who used to work for pretty much every federal agency out of Boston before he retired 10 years ago as a computer evidence analyst, turns to me and told me he ran into an old friend in the city just last week. They catch up and this friend, who still works out of the Boston FBI offices, decides to tell my dad the tale. The true tale of the stolen TB12 jersey from SB51. Now, some of this will be copacetic with the reports, some of it will be a little more in depth, and some of it will be peaking behind the curtain. Take it with a grain of salt, but my father swears by his FBI friend.

 

So the story begins after Brady reports his jersey as stolen. Initially, the Houston PD were nonchalant about it. While as memorabilia the jersey would be worth a great deal, realistically it is a jersey they mass produce for like $12 bucks. Basically, the Houston PD was like, we have better things to do than find this jersey not actually worth anything because anything other than the wholesale price is theoretical. They aren't totally wrong, Houston is a big city and there were probably MUCH bigger fish to fry for the PD to investigate $12 dollars of stolen property. (That 12 figure will be mentioned a lot, its the number my father was given). When it was clear that Houston PD was not going to be very helpful, the Patriots organization reach out to the FBI. 

 

Now, the FBI has ZERO jurisdiction on this case. For all they knew, the jersey was still in Houston and its a petty theft. After some prodding from the Patriots, they do step in. The Houston PD, however, basically told them to screw. It's not their case afterall, and no PD office likes it when the FBI tries to get involved. So they went independent. They figured out the Fox had camera's basically everywhere so they asked Fox to turn it over. They refused. Again, the FBI had no case and Fox had no reason to turn it over. The NFL, however, has a right to the footage so they nabbed it and shared it with the FBI. After review of the footage they were able to track the jersey to the locker room but not it going missing. So they went to the Patriots and asked who the people in the locker room were. It was before the team had gone into the locker room after the game. Brady had taken off his pads for the on field celebration and they tracked via the footage it going from the equipment guys hands to the locker room and saw the guy leave empty handed. So the Patriots started identifying people, mostly Kraft's friends and family, etc. Except one guy who was wearing a press pass they didnt know. So they followed him via the footage and saw him leave prior to the team entering the locker room. He had something under his arm but it was impossible to make out. 

 

So the FBI asked for a list of people with press passes that night. There were TWENTY TWO THOUSAND people on the list. Luckily, the pass lanyards were color coded and they new it was a male of a certain age so they were able to narrow the list down to about 2200. From there, the FBI went through the names and pictures BY HAND to match it with the man on the video. Remember, this is STILL not within FBI jurisdiction, they really shouldnt be allocating resources to this, one of the reasons why they did it by hand. So they identify a Mexican man from the Mexican media and pass the info onto the Houston PD who, again, rebuked the help. The FBI was dead in the water at this point without a case to warrant their intervention. 

 

Then they got lucky. A man in Chicago called the FBI tip line saying a guy in Mexico had been corresponding with him about rare NFL memorbilia and had sent him a picture which he gave to the FBI. The FBI took it to the Patriots who matched it with the stains and whatnot to the SB51 jersey. FINALLY the FBI could step in. They knew the crime had crossed state lines and they had a price point set as the man was attempting sale of the jersey for 1 million. They traced the email back to the man in Mexico City. They again looped in Houston PD who rebuked help saying they had a man in Mexico City who would take care of it. Turns out their man was actually an ATF liaison who refused to help. The FBI already had a man in Mexico City on assignment so they called him and found out that there was A LOT of talk about the FBI knowing the jersey was in Mexico City and if they wanted it before it was ditched or burned they better come get it. So the Boston office, despite the fact that they had no authority to, sent two agents to Mexico City to pick it up.

 

Here's where it gets... weird. So in Mexico, if you issue a search warrant, you HAVE to charge the person in question with a crime. Obviously the FBI did not want that because then the jersey would have been put in evidence for years and years. So instead, they went up to the man's door with two Federales with machine guns behind them and knocked. The man answered and the FBI were like listen... return the jersey or these men behind us will arrest you. The man promptly closed the door and after a few moment opened it with not one but TWO jerseys. The FBI had NO IDEA that there was more than one. This was the SB49 jersey. They pretended like they knew he had both in his possession and took them into custody. They called the Patriots organization about a potential second jersey. Apparently Brady recalled another going missing but he never reported it because it didnt mean anything to him. The SB51 jersey did because he dedicated the game to his Mom who was battling breast cancer and was going to give the jersey to her. Otherwise, this whole thing is probably forgotten about by Brady in that locker room in Houston. So the FBI are like ok, lets get these both back to the states. They are at the airport and get a call from the stationed agent. Apparently the same man dropped off something at the embassy in a black bag. After a bomb check, they opened it up and it was a Denver Broncos helmet. So they called the Broncos who initially had no idea a helmet was missing. They started started asking players and Von Miller stated that his Mom had his helmet from the SB. He called her and it turns out she didnt, so when Miller gave it to a staffer and told him to send it to his Ma it never arrived to his ignorance. So all of a sudden these two FBI agents have three pieces of SB memorabilia worth up to 2 million dollars and they are walking through a few airports trying to keep it hush hush because they don't people to know they have it and OH YEA they were never supposed to go to Mexico City to retrieve it in the first place. Their connecting flight was in ATLANTA. The customs officer at the ATL airport must have still been bitter because he made them wait HOURS before clearing the jerseys and the helmet. 

Eventually they got everything back to where it needed to be and then the Houston PD, who refused to help and did absolutely nothing, released a press release without consulting the FBI, and took a large part of the credit. They literally did nothing to help. Also, the FBI did NOT want it getting out that they helped AT ALL because they were definitely not supposed to at almost any point. Meanwhile their Chief of Police is putting it on record that there was an FBI investigation. So the FBI basically told them to shut the hell up which is why any other information given by Houston PD was vague as all hell. 

 

So there it is. I hope you all enjoyed the read! I believe this to be a true story, you can or you can't but I trust my father's FBI buddy. Oh, and they guy who stole the stuff? He is a free man in Mexico but he resigned from his press position and has a warrant for his arrest in the States. 

[Elky]

Tldr

[IheartMyV8]

Interesting!

[Dan_Bali]

Waste of tax payers dollars 

[mission27]

12 hours ago, Dan_Bali said:

Waste of tax payers dollars 

Tom and Giselle are American treasures.  FBI should be focusing on protecting them not fighting drug cartels or any low brow **** like that