Kansas City Chiefs superfan who became a fugitive after bank robbery charge has been caught in California, feds say

CNN

According to a federal news release, a Kansas man who attracted attention by wearing a full-sized wolf costume during Kansas City Chiefs home games was arrested in California. He allegedly removed his ankle monitoring device while out on bail for a bank robbery.

The US Attorney's Office for Missouri's Western District said that Xaviar Michael Babudar was arrested Friday in Lincoln California, 30 miles northeast from Sacramento. He had been on the run for more than three month.

Babudar of Overland Park in Kansas disappeared in late march after he made bail in February. He was arrested in December and charged with robbing an Oklahoma credit union's Tulsa County.

In a criminal complaint recently made public, federal authorities allege that before his arrest for these charges, he had traveled to "various locations in the Midwestern United States" to commit a series of bank and credit union robberies. According to an affidavit, authorities allege that he laundered robbery proceeds via casinos and bank accounts.

The federal criminal complaint accuses him of bank theft and interstate transport of stolen property, on suspicion that he took nearly $70,000 in March 2022 from the tellers of the Great Western Bank at Clive, Iowa and then transported this money to Missouri.

According to the press release, additional charges may be possible.

Don Ledford is the spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office. He declined to comment on the matter and directed CNN to the press release.

Hannah Labaree said that Babudar's first court appearance in California was Tuesday afternoon. Hannah Labaree is his public defender. She stated that the proceedings were "largely procedural."

According to the release, the case will be presented to a Grand Jury to decide whether or not to indict the federal charges brought in the Iowa case.

ESPN.com published a long article on Babudar after he was arrested in Oklahoma. It stated that he was a regular at Chiefs tailgates, and even games. According to the report, Babudar was wearing a gray-wolf suit and had thousands of followers on ChiefsAholic's twitter account.

The FBI claims in an affidavit, that Babudar robbed banks and credit unions throughout the Midwest at the same time. To launder money, he bought and redeemed casino chips in Kansas and Missouri, as well as funding his bank account. The affidavit states that more than $845,000.00 was stolen, including roughly $70,000, from an Iowa bank. After one of the robberies, $163,560 in red dye was recovered.

According to the affidavit, Babudar made deposits of about $70,000 between March 17th and April 12th 2022 in his credit union's money market account after the robbery that occurred in Iowa in March 2022. The court document claims that Babudar withdrew $68k in April and had another $65,000 deposited by casinos into his account.

The affidavit states that Babudar purchased over $1.1 million worth of casino chips between April 2022 and December 2022 and then redeemed them for about $50,000 less.

Cameron Smith, a special agent with the FBI's complex financial crime squad, wrote in an affidavit they tried to determine whether Babudar was earning a legitimate income. According to the affidavit, Babudar had not reported any wages in Kansas since 2018, and in any other state in October 2021.

Smith notes that Babudar's cell phone data puts him near the scene of the robberies. According to the affidavit, physical evidence included gloves found in Babudar's vehicle that appeared to match gloves used during the thefts.