Tom Brady’s jersey was tracked down thanks partly to a 19-year-old fan’s tip
Truly a team effort.
As it turned out, not only were the Texas Rangers, the FBI and several police departments (from multiple countries) involved in the investigation to find Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jerseys, but one of the most important discoveries emerged from a 19-year-old Patriots fan.
In a piece from WBZ-TV’s Cheryl Fiandaca, 19-year-old Dylan Wagner explained his role in helping to find Brady’s jerseys. Living in Seattle, Wagner is a Patriots fan and a sports memorabilia collector. And it was his interaction with jersey thief Mauricio Ortega before Super Bowl LI that eventually helped crack the case wide open.
Ortega and Wagner exchanged photos of their respective jersey collections after a transaction in December. As Wagner noted in his interview with Fiandaca, Brady’s Super Bowl XLIX was “front and center.”
At the time, it wasn’t widely know that Brady’s jersey from the 2015 Super Bowl win was also missing. Still, Wagner sent the pictures of Ortega’s collection to his friend (and fellow collector) in the ATF, Boston Special Agent Christopher Arone.
Flashing forward to the aftermath of Super Bowl LI, Arone sent Wagner an ESPN article that mentioned not only Brady’s recently stolen jersey, but that his Super Bowl XLIX jersey was also stolen. Wagner then sent all of the photos Ortega had shared with him to the ATF agent, who then relayed them to the FBI.
This ended up being important in the investigation of Brady’s missing jersey, because as Wagner noted, “Without the photos I sent him they wouldn’t have been able to get a search warrant to go into Ortega’s basement and get the jerseys.”
On top of that, Wagner was also able to give authorities with Ortega’s possible whereabouts.
“I was able to provide them with two addresses to search,” Wagner said.
The rest, as Patriots fans now know, is history. Authorities recovered both of Brady’s stolen jerseys. And the 39-year-old quarterback was recently given his property back after taking an “international trip.”
