Great Brady Heist: Team that solved mystery of Tom Brady's stolen jersey talks about their adventure

HOUSTON - It's been called the "football crime of the century": Tom Brady’s Super Bowl 51 jersey was stolen in plain sight six years ago.

Afterwards, it did not show up on eBay. But thanks to the e-commerce site, another one of his Super Bowl jerseys did eventually come to the attention of law enforcement.

That was December 2016.  At the time, Dylan Boulanger was just 19 years old. The avid sports collector was in the middle of selling another NFL jersey to a man named martin Mauricio Ortega. As many collectors do, Ortega sent him photos of his sports memorabilia collection and Boulanger did the same. 

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"Then he reaches back out a few days later and he’s like, ‘Did you see my Tom Brady Super Bowl jersey?"’ I was like, ‘No, I didn’t see that one.’ So I started scrolling back through all the photos he sent me and there it was, front and center in his collection, right next to the Dion Branch jersey I had sold him," Boulanger said.

By matching game day photos with the one Ortega sent, Boulanger did his own detective work to determine that was Brady's Super Bowl 49 jersey.

So when the news broke about Brady's Super Bowl 51 jersey being stolen, Boulanger started putting two and two together.

"Initially, I had reached out to Houston police dept because I heard they were running point on the investigation, and when I called their non-emergency number of basically got the cliché: ‘File a report with your local police department,’" he said.

At the time, Boulanger was living in the small town of Kent, Washington. He received similar responses when he called the NFL and the Patriots front offices.

"They kind of giggled at the fact that this 19-year-old kid maybe has a lead on it," he said.

Even his own mother didn't believe him. But fellow collector and Boston ATF agent Chris Arone did.

"When Dylan sent me the photos of Tom's Super Bowl 49 jersey, I knew right off the bat, just from having the experience of dealing in game-worn jerseys  – I knew it was a real jersey," Arone said. 

Retired Chicago FBI agent Brian Brusokas is known across the country for his work investigating sports memorabilia fraud. This sports collecting "dream team" helped investigators determine Martin Ortega was the unknown man seen on security camera footage taking Brady's Super Bowl 51 jersey from the Patriots locker room in Houston. Ortega is a former journalist from Mexico, which is how he happened to be at the game.

"If Martin had never shared those photos with Dylan, I'm not sure this case would have never been solved. He kind of was his own worst enemy  in that respect," he said.

That's because in the sport memorabilia world,  you can get caught up in what's called a "collector's high." When a collector wants an item -- not for money -- but just to have in his collection and will go to great lengths to get it.

"Something like that has a double edge sword to it because you now have a very unique item. It's not like you can go display it to the public. Talk to your friends about it. To brag about it," he said.

With Brady announcing his retirement for the second time, what are the odds history will repeat itself?

"Ultimately, anything [Brady] does in his last moment on the field is going to be a tremendous amount. His last touch down. The last jersey Tom Brady wore," Brusokas said.

Even though Boulanger and Arone both have prized Tom Brady possessions of their own, this case gave all of them something even more valuable.

"It’s a friendship. It’s a group bond. I don’t think we ever get tired of telling the story of how we all came together," Arone said.

"It's been an exciting adventure. A story that I'll never forget. A story I'll be able to tell my kids and my grandkids one day," Boulanger said.

Both of Brady's Super Bowl jerseys were returned to him a few months after Super Bowl 51.  

In Fox Sports "The Great Brady Heist," Ortega said he knows what he did was wrong, and that he regretted doing so. Ortega also said in the documentary that he knew he’d be caught because of the photos he shared with Boulanger two months earlier.