When Tom Brady’s jersey went missing after the Super Bowl in February, it would have been hard to imagine the fracas that was about to ensue.

A simple missing shirt turned into a multi-agency investigation that lasted more than a month and resulted in authorities confronting Martín Mauricio Ortega, the director of Mexican tabloid newspaper La Prensa, at his home in Mexico City. As it turned out, Ortega also possessed Brady’s jersey from Super Bowl XLIX and Von Miller’s helmet from Super Bowl 50.

And according to a fun feature from The MMQB’s Robert Klemko and Jenny Vrentas, the ordeal also risked disrupting delicate relations between the United States and Mexico. Ortega had returned home to Mexico with the stolen jersey, valued at $500,000, and since Mexicans are not particularly thrilled with the U.S. and its president these days, American authorities were wary of making demands of the Mexican police.

American officials were also cognizant of the charged atmosphere. “We had [Ortega] identified—that wasn’t the point,” says a U.S. investigator who worked on the case. “It was now the point of walking that political minefield as delicately as we could to appease everybody. We didn’t want to upset the Mexican authorities, we didn’t want to upset the Mexican people, we didn’t want to upset the U.S. embassy.”

Given the sensitivity of the situation, the FBI coordinated with attorneys at the Justice Department as well as at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

Because extradition from Mexico to the U.S. is rare, American authorities were unlikely to be able to charge Ortega with a crime. They just wanted to get Brady’s jersey back. And on March 12, they did.

Via The MMQB:

Dressed in his pajamas, his stunned wife looking on, Ortega was face-to-face with armed federal agents. According to a source in the Mexican government, a deal was presented: Hand over the Super Bowl jerseys and whatever else you’ve stolen, and you will sleep in your own bed not only tonight, but for the foreseeable future. Ortega fished a black trash bag out of a dresser drawer and gave it to the police, who took photos of the transaction to prove Ortega’s cooperation.

Agents didn’t tear up the floorboards, toss cabinets or pull kitchen appliances from their wall connections. They didn’t even search the lower floor. They simply asked, Do you have anything else? He did.

He made a phone call to a friend who arrived shortly thereafter. (Mexican police on the scene dubbed the physically stout newcomer Gordito, “little fat one.”) The friend brought with him an orange-and-navy-blue helmet with year-old scuff marks on the crown: Von Miller’s Super Bowl 50 helmet.

 Ortega got off without any real punishment, but at least Brady got his jerseys back.

[The MMQB]

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.

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