Xaviar Babudar

Convicted and sentenced. Xaviar Michael Babudar pleaded guilty in February 2024 to money laundering, transporting stolen property across state lines, and bank robbery, and was sentenced on September 5, 2024 to 17 years and six months in federal prison without parole for a string of 11 robberies and attempted robberies that took 847,725 dollars from financial institutions across seven states.

Introduction

Xaviar Babudar was, to Kansas City Chiefs fans on social media, a celebrity: the superfan known as @ChiefsAholic, who attended most games dressed as a wolf in Chiefs gear and built a large following online. To federal prosecutors in Missouri and Oklahoma, he was the man behind a multi-state string of armed bank and credit union robberies that bankrolled that lifestyle. On September 5, 2024, U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs sentenced the 30-year-old to 17 years and six months in federal prison without parole, with concurrent terms in the Western District of Missouri and Northern District of Oklahoma cases, 532,675 dollars in restitution to the victim financial institutions, and forfeiture of the property involved in his money laundering — including an autographed painting of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes II that the FBI had recovered.

Background Information

Babudar, who lived a nomadic existence at various locations around the Kansas City metropolitan area, pleaded guilty on February 28, 2024 to one count of money laundering and one count of transporting stolen property across state lines in the Missouri case, and to one count of bank robbery in a separate case filed in the Northern District of Oklahoma. His admitted spree ran to nine robberies or attempted robberies of banks and credit unions in 2022, followed by two more committed while he was a fugitive from justice, for a total of 11 across seven states and 847,725 dollars stolen. He laundered much of the proceeds through Kansas City-area casinos and online gambling, and prosecutors said the spree financed the expensive tickets and travel behind his fan persona. After his December 2022 arrest in Oklahoma, he was released on bond in a state case in February 2023; he was arrested again on July 7, 2023, and had been detained in federal custody without bond since.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

The robbery that ended Babudar’s double life happened at the Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union in Bixby, Oklahoma on December 16, 2022. He entered armed with what appeared to be a black handgun, jumped the teller counter, and ordered an employee at gunpoint to take him to the vault, where he demanded that employees open it and put the money into a plastic bag, telling them he would shoot them if they did not comply. His arrest shortly afterward broke the persona open: investigators found a large bag containing 150,250 dollars in cash, and a search of his 2019 Mazda 3 turned up numerous pairs of goggles and gloves matching the kind worn during the robberies, along with a 20,000-dollar Barstool Sportsbook betslip and a 4,000-dollar FanDuel betslip from the weeks before, and records of large credit union deposits. The admitted robberies before it followed the same pattern across the Midwest — including 70,000 dollars from Great Western Bank in Clive, Iowa in March 2022, where he left behind a black glove from which investigators recovered his DNA.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The sentencing statements from three federal prosecutors framed the case as the collapse of a manufactured celebrity. “While parading as a social media celebrity, the defendant secretly engaged in a violent crime spree of armed robberies and attempted robberies across seven states,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore of the Western District of Missouri, adding that the bank and credit union employees he terrorized at gunpoint “suffered the brunt of his true nature.” FBI Kansas City Special Agent in Charge Stephen Cyrus said Babudar “terrorized bank employees throughout his multi-state crime spree, while relishing his celebrity status.” In Oklahoma, U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson called the Bixby robbery brazen and traumatic for the employees robbed there. The court made the double life itself part of the punishment: the concurrent 17-and-a-half-year terms, restitution of 532,675 dollars, and forfeiture of the proceeds, including the recovered Mahomes painting.

Current Status

Babudar, 30, is serving 17 years and six months in federal prison without parole, with the Missouri and Oklahoma sentences running concurrently, following his September 5, 2024 sentencing by Judge Sachs. He owes 532,675 dollars in restitution to the victim financial institutions, most of the stolen money having never been recovered. Beyond the two admitted robberies in Iowa and Oklahoma, his eight other robberies or attempted robberies — including the 170,860-dollar First National Bank of Omaha robbery in April 2022 and a 303,845-dollar robbery in West Des Moines that July — were counted as relevant conduct at sentencing, along with two robberies committed while he was a fugitive.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The persona that made Babudar famous is gone as a matter of law: the online celebrity identity dissolved into a federal record of armed robbery, money laundering, and interstate transport of stolen property, with a sentence that will keep him imprisoned into his late forties. The financial footprint of the fan life — the tickets, the travel, the betting slips, the casino laundering — became the prosecution’s map of the crimes, and the forfeitures, down to the autographed Mahomes painting on his walls, undid the trappings of the fame. For the tellers and credit union employees across seven states who were ordered to vaults at gunpoint, the sentence closed a string of robberies their testimony and the physical evidence — DNA from a dropped glove and a left-behind hat — helped prove. And for the sports-social-media world that had embraced ChiefsAholic, the case stands as the cautionary example of a fan identity whose funding turned out to be federal bank robbery.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri, “KC Chiefs ‘Superfan’ Sentenced to 17 Years for Bank Robberies, Money Laundering,” September 5, 2024 — source