Federal prosecutors filed charges Monday against a Kansas City Chiefs fan accused of robbing a bank in Iowa and suspected of holdups in other states.
Xaviar Michael Babudar, 29, of Overland Park, Kansas, also known as the wolf-costume-wearing fan ChiefsAholic, was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Missouri with one count of bank theft and one count of transporting stolen property across state lines.
Federal prosecutors filed the charges after Mr. Babudar was arrested Friday in the Sacramento suburb of Lincoln, California.
“[Investigators] determined that Babudar would travel to various locations throughout the Midwestern United States to perpetrate a string of robberies at various banks and credit unions before returning home to the Kansas City Metropolitan area to launder these robbery proceeds through area casinos and deposit these proceeds in his various bank accounts,” the criminal complaint reads.
Mr. Babudar was first arrested in December after he was accused of robbing $150,000 from an Oklahoma bank. The suspect was released on bond in February, but he cut his ankle monitor in March and was on the lam until his arrest last week.
FBI agents began reviewing bank records, casino transaction records and sensitive financial reporting following Mr. Babudar’s arrest in December. The criminal complaint said investigators found the suspect bought and redeemed more than $1 million in chips from various casinos in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois from April 2022 to December.
After discovering that Mr. Babudar hadn’t reported any wages in Kansas since 2018 or in any other state since October 2021, investigators looked into unsolved bank robberies to see if that’s where the suspect was sourcing his money.
Records showed that Mr. Babudar’s cellphone was placed in the same cities and locations of four bank robberies in Nebraska, Iowa, Tennessee and Oklahoma as well as two attempted holdups of credit unions in Minnesota.
The criminal complaint charged Mr. Babudar with stealing $70,000 from the Great Western Bank in Clive, Iowa, in March 2022 and taking the money to Missouri.
Prosecutors said the NFL fan pulled off the heist by wearing a ski mask and handing a teller a note demanding money. He was given the $70,000 by the teller, and authorities said they later found $1,460 in nearby woods and a glove worn by Mr. Babudar during the robbery.
The suspect then deposited the approximate amount of the bank’s stolen money into a money market savings account, the complaint said, and made multiple casino chip purchases and redemptions at the Argosy Casino in Riverside, Missouri.
If convicted, Mr. Babudar faces up to 30 years behind bars.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.