The Kansas City man who went from internet-famous Chiefs superfan to accused bank robber to most wanted fugitive was back behind bars on Monday—and facing a slew of new robbery charges.
Xaviar Babudar, 28, was known on Twitter as @ChiefsAholic, a diehard fan who wore wolf costumes to Chiefs games—at least until his bizarre arrest last December for an armed hold up of a Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he asked for a bail exemption to attend a “family vacation” in Arizona on the same weekend the Chiefs played the Super Bowl.
But he later cut off his ankle monitor, ditched it in a field near a Tulsa mall, and vamoosed on a March court date, according to authorities. A $1 million bond warrant was issued for his arrest, and he landed on Kansas City Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted list.
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Babudar was finally nabbed on Friday in Lincoln, California, just north of Sacramento, the FBI said Monday. In announcing his capture, the FBI said investigators had also since uncovered evidence tying Babudar to a string of bank robberies across the Midwest, all allegedly in support of an apparent gambling addiction.
A map included in the FBI’s affidavit showing various bank robberies, and attempted bank robberies, allegedly perpetrated by Babudar throughout 2022.
FBIBabudar laundered the proceeds of his robberies through different casinos and bank accounts, buying and redeeming a massive $1 million in chips from various Midwest casinos just six months leading up to his December arrest, the feds said in a new indictment.
After noticing huge transactions in Babudar’s bank records and casino transaction records, investigators worked backwards. They used cellphone records to track Babudar’s movements across the Midwest last year, and correlated his location with unsolved bank robberies from the same time, the indictment says.
He’s now charged in relation to four bank robberies in Nebraska, Iowa, Tennessee and Oklahoma, and the attempted robberies of two credit unions in Minnesota.
Surveillance images of the Omaha robbery.
FBIIn the Iowa robbery, he allegedly walked into a Great Western Bank in Clive wearing a ski mask and handed a teller a note demanding money and indicating he had a firearm. The teller handed Babudar $70,000, the indictment says.
Cops later found $1,460 in $20 bills scattered in nearby woods along with a glove allegedly worn by Babudar during the robbery.
The money was then deposited into Babudar’s savings account over six weeks, the indictment says, before Babudar used it to splash out at the Argosy Casino in Riverside, Missouri.
Not all of the alleged robberies were successful, though. After stealing around $170,000 at gunpoint from a First National Bank of Omaha in Nebraska, a dye pack exploded, the FBI says. The cash was found dumped in the woods, covered in red dye.
Apparently learning his lesson, Babudar is accused of robbing a Tennessee Federal Credit Union in Nashville about six months later, telling the bank employee that if he was given a dye pack he would “come back and put a hole in your head.” He allegedly made off with $125,900 which was blown at a casino the next day.
The robbery that finally did Babudar in was not particularly sophisticated.
Surveillance images from the Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union robbery.
FBIAccording to the feds, he walked into the Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union in Bixby, Oklahoma, carrying a handgun and wearing a hoodie, black and yellow gloves, a black paintball mask, and ski goggles. He allegedly jumped the counter, forced an employee to open a vault, and then ordered the employee to put the money from the vault into a plastic bag. But cops found him a short time later after he fled the area on a bike, “while carrying a large, overstuffed bag,” the indictment says. The bag contained $150,250 in cash.
When cops later searched his car, they found, among other things, several pairs of gloves and ski masks that matched those seen in security footage of other robberies, a Barstool Sportsbook Betslip for $20,000 dated Nov. 19, a Fanduel Betslip for $4,000 dated Dec. 1, and credit union letters related to deposits of $70,000.
DNA on the glove left in the Iowa woods matched DNA on a hat found in the woods near the Nashville robbery, both of which matched items seen on the suspect in CCTV images, the indictment says.
