Kansas City superfan ChiefsAholic indicted on bank robbery, money laundering: Prosecutors
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced additional criminal charges brought against ChiefsAholic, the wolf-costume-wearing Kansas City superfan accused of robbing banks across the Midwest.
Xaviar Babudar, 29, was indicted by a grand jury on 19 felony counts that include charges of armed bank robbery, money laundering and transportation of stolen property across state lines, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.
Babudar has been held in federal custody since early July.
Prosecutors say Babudar carried out “a string” of armed robberies of banks and credit unions before moving the money through Midwestern casinos. He is accused in the indictment of robberies in Clive, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; West Des Moines, Iowa; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Babudar is also accused of two failed bank robberies in Minnesota.
Babudar allegedly took nearly $700,000 from financial institutions, according to the indictment, though prosecutors say Omaha, Nebraska, police recovered $163,560 that was covered in red dye and dropped in the woods. FBI forensic accountants tracked about $1 million in casino chips Babudar allegedly traded as part of their investigation.
Matthew Merryman, a criminal defense attorney representing Babudar, said in a statement Wednesday that the government’s indictment did “not come as a surprise,” though he called “the government’s characterization” of him surprising.
“The truth is that since 2018 (Babudar), aka ‘ChiefsAholic’ has entertained, inspired, unified and motivated Kansas Citians, the Chiefs Kingdom and hundreds of millions of football fans around the globe,” Merryman said in an emailed response to The Star’s request for comment.
“It’s now the fourth quarter of the most important game of (Babudar’s) life, and his legal team believes his innocence will be proven to the public and confident that once all of the facts are known that he will be redeemed in the eyes of all of his supporters and the Chiefs Kingdom.”
A familiar presence at Kansas City Chiefs games who boasted a strong following on social media, Babudar became the target of an FBI investigation shortly after a Dec. 16 credit union robbery near Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Babudar was arrested after allegedly fleeing the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union on a bicycle. Police in Bixby, Oklahoma, found him in possession of $150,000 in cash and a BB gun.
Three miles away, a car parked in the lot of a Tulsa gym was identified by authorities as one registered to Babudar. A search warrant yielded betting slips and bank paperwork in Babudar’s name with deposit memos in the tens of thousands of dollars.
State charges were brought against him in that case. Babudar was ordered to remain on GPS monitoring when he was released on bond in February.
Babudar’s arrest quickly went viral on social media as fans speculated about the incident. His disappearance was noticed from Chiefs games and the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. His @ChiefsAholic account was later deleted.
In March, an arrest warrant was issued after Babudar allegedly cut off his ankle monitor in a wooded area in Tulsa. He was on the lam until his July arrest by police outside Sacramento, California.
In May, a federal criminal complaint filed against Babudar outlined one specific case charging him with the robbery of nearly $70,000 from the Great Western Bank in Clive, Iowa. But authorities said at the time Babudar was suspected of other crimes.
Charges brought under the indictment Wednesday listed three counts of armed bank robbery, one count of bank theft, 11 counts of money laundering and four counts of transporting stolen property across state lines.
In the highest-dollar robbery, prosecutors say Babudar stole $303,845 from the First Class Community Credit Union in West Des Moines, Iowa, on July 13, 2022. He allegedly jumped on a teller counter, holding what appeared to be a firearm, and demanded bank employees open the vault.
Some of the proceeds were deposited in his personal savings account, prosecutors allege, while more of the money was used to buy casino chips in Missouri and Illinois.
