During Super Bowl LI in 2017, someone broke into Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia and stole Kobe Bryant memorabilia.
The stolen goods included an extremely valuable state championship trophy and a Kobe Bryant jersey.
That jersey eventually made it to Chinese collector and Kobe fan Liu Zhe. Zhe isn’t the one who stole the jersey, as he paid a good amount of money for it. According to Zhe himself, he paid $2,000 for the jersey. Once the jersey arrived at his house, he recognized it and realized that it may be the jersey that was stolen from Lower Merion High School.
After initially planning to personally hand over the jersey to Kobe in Shenzhen (Bryant is part of the 2019 FIBA World Cup draw) this Saturday, he agreed to send it back to Lower Merion. He didn’t ask for any compensation. Per ESPN:
“Liu had intended to return the uniform to Bryant in person when the former Lakers star visits Shenzhen, China, on Saturday to announce the draw for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
However, after connecting with a representative for Lower Merion’s basketball team through its Instagram account, Liu agreed to mail the uniform back to the school.
He asked for no compensation in return — other than hoping that Bryant would be alerted that the jersey had been recovered.”
