A Kansas City Chiefs super fan who was arrested last year in connection with a bank robbery in Oklahoma is suspected in a string of bank robberies across the Midwest, officials announced Monday.
Xaviar Michael Babudar, 28, is a self-proclaimed super fan of the football team who had a robust social media presence under the Twitter handle @ChiefsAholic, the U.S. attorney’s office for Western Missouri said in a statement.
He was arrested in December in connection with a robbery at Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union in Oklahoma, where authorities believe he stole $150,250. Babudar was released from jail in February and removed his ankle monitor in late March, and he was a fugitive until authorities found him Friday.
After Babudar's arrest, authorities reviewed bank and casino transaction records to assess the extent of his potential criminal activity.
It was determined that from April to December 2022, Babudar purchased over $1 million in chips from casinos in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois and that he "over that same time period redeemed a similar amount from said casinos," court documents say.
That prompted authorities to look into unsolved bank robberies during the same period.
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 U.S. attorney's office alleged.
In addition to the bank robbery in Oklahoma, the affidavit connects him to four others in Nebraska, Iowa, Tennessee and Oklahoma, as well as two attempted robberies of credit unions in Minnesota.
In the Iowa incident, Babudar is accused of stealing $70,000 from Great Western Bank in Clive on March 2, 2022, "then transporting the stolen money across state lines from Iowa to Missouri," according to the complaint.
An investigation determined that Babudar’s cellphone was in the same cities and locations as the robberies and attempted robberies.
Babudar was charged with one count of bank theft and one count of transporting stolen property across state lines in connection with last year's robbery. The criminal complaint was filed under seal in U.S. District Court in Kansas City on May 24 and unsealed following his arrest Friday in Lincoln, California, near Sacramento.
Babudar will appear in court Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, authorities said.
"This case will be presented to a federal grand jury to determine whether to return an indictment on these or any additional charges," the U.S. attorney's office in Western Missouri said in a news release.
It's not clear if Babudar has an attorney.
