Kansas City Chiefs Fan Jailed for Nearly a Dozen Bank Robberies

According to an announcement from the Department of Justice, 30-year-old Kansas City Chiefs superfan Xaviar “ChiefsAholic” Babudar has been slapped with a prison sentence of 17.5 years without parole for carrying out a series of 11 armed bank robberies in California, the Midwest, and Nevada. 

Babudar will also have to pay $532,675 in restitution to all the financial institutions that fell victim to him and also return an autographed painting of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes recovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

16-Month Crime Spree

According to the FBI, Babudar initiated his 16-month crime spree in March 2022, with the robbery of the Great Western Bank in Clive, Iowa. 

On December 16, 2022, Babudar was put under arrest by police officers in Bixby while attempting to flee with $139,500 that he took off with from the armed robbery that he had just committed at the Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union. 

In February of 2023, he was released on bond, given a GPS ankle monitor, and placed under the strict order to not exit Oklahoma. 

Next, he scooped up $100,000 from bets that he had placed in June 2022 on the Kansas City winning the Super Bowl. 

After he used a saw to cut off his bracelet monitor, he cashed out the money and left Oklahoma. 

He went missing from the authorities’ radar for roughly four months, during which he continued to rob banks in Sparks, Nevada and El Dorado Hills, California. 

In total, he managed to steal $847,725 by the time the authorities finally arrested him on July 7, 2023, in Lincoln, California. 

Most of that money was never recovered from the superfan who apparently laundered the proceeds by gambling at casinos.

Between April and December 2022, he bought over $1 million in casino chips from gambling venues in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois while also redeeming about the same amount via the same casinos. 

Prosecutors deemed the pattern as indicative of money laundering.

The Gray Wolf Suit

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri, the man lived a nomadic lifestyle at different whereabouts in the Kansas City metropolitan area. 

When attending Chiefs games, whether home or away, he was seen wearing an eye-catching gray wolf suit that would often catch the interest of TV cameramen.

Babudar, who had an online following as @Chiefsaholic on social media, pleaded guilty to one count of bank robbery, one count of money laundering, and one count of carrying stolen property across state lines in February 2024. 

Additionally, he pleaded guilty to another count of bank robbery, contained in a separate case that had been filed in the Northern District of Oklahoma. 

In each of the cases, he received a sentence of 17 and a half years. He will serve all sentences concurrently.

“It’s an Addiction to Fame”

While Babudar’s attorney, Matthew Merryman, claimed his client’s robberies were triggered by his gambling addiction, senior litigation counsel at the US Attorney’s Office, Patrick Daly, contradicted him. 

“It’s not an addiction to gambling,” Daly said, or to Chiefs, he continued, but rather “an addiction to fame.”

In the statement issued after the sentence, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Kansas City Field Office Stephen Cyrus agreed with Daly, explaining how Babudar had “terrorized bank employees throughout his multistate crime spree while relishing his celebrity status.”