Kansas City Chiefs superfan who became a fugitive after bank robbery charge has been caught in California, feds say

By Steve Almasy, CNN

(CNN) — A Kansas man who gained attention for dressing in a full wolf’s costume at Kansas City Chiefs games and who allegedly removed his ankle monitor while he was out on bail on a bank robbery charge has been arrested in California, according to a news release from federal authorities.

Xaviar Michael Babudar, a 28-year-old man known to fans of the 2023 Super Bowl champs by his Twitter handle ChiefsAholic, was taken into custody Friday in Lincoln, California, just 30 miles northeast of Sacramento, after more than three months as a fugitive, the US attorney’s office for Missouri’s western district said in the release.

Babudar, of Overland Park, Kansas, disappeared in late March, after making bail in February after he was arrested and charged in December on suspicion of robbing a credit union in Oklahoma’s Tulsa County, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case.

Federal authorities now allege in a recently unsealed criminal complaint that before his arrest on those charges he traveled to “various locations throughout the Midwestern United States to perpetrate a string of robberies at various banks and credit unions.” Authorities allege he laundered the robbery proceeds through casinos and bank accounts, according to the affidavit.

The federal criminal complaint charges him with bank theft and interstate transportation of stolen property on suspicion of taking nearly $70,000 from the tellers at the Great Western Bank in Clive, Iowa, in March 2022 and taking that money to Missouri.

Additional charges are possible, according to the news release.

A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office, Don Ledford, had no comment and referred CNN to the news release.

Babudar made his initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon in California, according to his appointed public defender, Hannah Labaree, who said the proceedings were “largely procedural.”

The case will be taken to a grand jury to determine whether to return an indictment on the federal charges in the Iowa case or other charges, the news release said.

After Babudar was arrested in Oklahoma, ESPN.com ran a lengthy story on him, writing he was a fixture at Chiefs tailgates and games. Babudar wore a gray wolf suit and had tens of thousands of followers on his ChiefsAholic twitter account, according to the report.

But the FBI alleges in its affidavit that at about the same time, Babudar was robbing banks and credit unions in the Midwest and then, to launder the money, was buying and redeeming casino chips in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, and also funding his bank accounts. According to the affidavit, more than $845,000 was stolen from six banks, including the roughly $70,000 from the institution in Iowa. Some $163,560, covered in red dye, was immediately recovered after one of the robberies.

The affidavit alleges that after the Iowa robbery in March 2022, Babudar deposited about $70,000 in his credit union money market account in transactions between March 17 and April 12, 2022. But in April, Babudar also withdrew $68,000 and had $65,000 deposited into his account by casinos, the court document alleges.

In total, Babudar allegedly purchased more than $1.1 million in casino chips and redeemed about $50,000 less between April and December 2022, the affidavit says.

Cameron Smith, an FBI special agent in the bureau’s complex financial crimes squad, writes in the affidavit that they attempted to find out whether Babudar had a legitimate source of income. But Babudar has reported no wages in Kansas since 2018 and none in any other state since October 2021, according to the affidavit.

Smith writes that cell phone data places Babudar near the scenes of the robberies. Physical evidence includes gloves found in the suspect’s car that appear to match gloves worn during the thefts, according to the affidavit.

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CNN’s Cheri Mossburg and Jack Hannah contributed to this report.