The problem with stolen art is that once you start to sell it, word gets out. When the art involved is a hundred or more bronze religious medallions, each worth perhaps $1,000, eventually somebody will notice, call the FBI, and there go the profits.

Which is apparently what happened with a haul of bronze medallions that took a 237-year journey from Spain to Anguilla to Vermont and then back to the Caribbean.

Shortly after midnight on June 8, 1772, the Spanish vessel El Buen Consejo smashed into Anguilla in the Leeward Islands, stranding passengers and crew on a voyage to Mexico.

The ship and an accompanying vessel, El Prusiano, sank, with their cargoes. The lost goods included thousands of bronze religious medallions carried by 50 Franciscan priests who were bound for the Philippines and meant to be used to win converts and for educational purposes.

On Tuesday, more than 100 of the medals were returned to the government of Anguilla by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said it had assisted Anguillan authorities in recovering the medallions, which are considered to have “international archaeological significance.” Under Anguillan law, such goods are not supposed to leave the country.

How it came into possession of the artifacts, the FBI did not reveal, nor did it immediately respond to a phone call seeking clarification.

Internet postings, however, point to David Stevens, a U.S. citizen with business ties to Anguilla, as the source for at least some of the medals.

Don Mitchell, a lawyer, runs a Web site called Corruption-free Anguilla. In November, he posted a copy of what appears to be an eBay Web page that listed an “El Buen Consejo Medallion (Original)” with a starting bid of $500 and a “Buy It Now” (effectively a maximum) price of $1,000.

Text, purportedly from the posting, said the seller had acquired the medallion from her former boyfriend, who had received it from “David Stevens of Rutland, Vt.” in exchange for construction work. Her boyfriend, she said, had obtained four medallions.

Mitchell is secretary of the Anguilla Archaeological and Historical Society, which he said was “instrumental” in alerting the FBI about the medallions. A letter the group sent to the newspaper the Anguillian stated that Bob Conrich, one of its board members, contacted the seller and encouraged her to test the authenticity of the medallion, since it could not have legally reached Vermont if it were real.

The seller ended up surrendering the medallion and giving information to the FBI that, according to the letter, led to the recovery of 40 more of the artifacts in the Vermont area.

There is a connection between Vermont and Anguilla. In 1987, Leander (Bull) Bryan, a local fisherman, found a medallion that led him to the wreck of the El Buen Consejo, whose location had been unknown. Four years later, he met Raymond Knutsen, a veterinarian and diver from Rutland who liked Anguilla.

Bryan showed the wreck to Knutsen, who eventually brought two friends from Vermont to see it — Theodore Parisi, a lawyer from Castleton, and an accountant from Rutland, David Stevens.

The trio eventually formed a company, Anguilla Maritime Research, which in exchange for a promise not to keep artifacts from the ship, were given the rights to establish a diving resort around it. Shallow-water wrecks are difficult to protect, since minimal if any diving gear is needed to explore — and exploit — them. With the El Buen Consejo having lain undisturbed by man for two centuries, the resort deal seemed like a good way for the Anguilla government to protect the historical attributes of the wreck while allowing it to be studied and protected by a for-profit enterprise.

Then the medallion showed up on eBay.

The archaeological society’s research seems to point the finger at least at Stevens, who is hard to track down. The Web site for the shipwreck has been taken offline and an email to the resort seeking comment was not answered. The only David Stevens listed as an accountant at the Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Mitchell, the lawyer and archaeological group secretary, said in an email that more medallions might be coming back to Anguilla: “We have no idea how many medallions were removed and not returned to us. Mr. Stevens's group did return several hundred some years ago after taking them to the U.S.A. We were given to understand at the time that they were all the medallions. We now know different."