KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal judge has sentenced the Kansas City Chiefs superfan known as “ChiefsAholic” to more than 17 years in prison for a string of 11 bank robberies in seven states where he stole nearly $850,000 to fund his social media fame.
Xavier Babudar, 30, learned his fate Thursday, the same day his beloved Chiefs prepared for their season opener against the Baltimore Ravens. He will spend 17 1/2 years in prison for the bank robberies he confessed to earlier this year.
Babudar developed a following on his @ChiefsAholic account on the social platform X after attending games dressed as a wolf in Chiefs gear. His rabid support for the Chiefs has become well-known on social media, though he’s far from the team’s most famous fan since Taylor Swift began dating tight end Travis Kelce last year.
“Babudar’s spree of robberies allowed him to purchase expensive tickets and travel across the country to Kansas City Chiefs games, all while cultivating a large online fan base. However, the bank and credit union employees he terrorized at gunpoint bore the brunt of his true nature,” U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in a statement.
Most of the money Babudar stole was never recovered, so the court ordered him to pay more than $530,000 in restitution and forfeit everything he used to launder the money, including an autographed painting of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, which the FBI recovered.
But he may never be able to repay that sum, just as he is unlikely to pay $10.8 million to an Oklahoma bank employee he terrorized and assaulted at gunpoint during one of his robberies. Prosecutors have said much of the stolen money was laundered through casinos and online gambling sites.
Babudar robbed or attempted to rob banks in Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Tennessee, Minnesota, Nevada, and California in 2022 and 2023. Two of the robberies were committed after he cut off his ankle monitor while out on bail and fled Oklahoma. He even robbed the same bank in Clive, Iowa, twice in 2022, although the bank changed its name in the months following the robberies.
When he was first arrested in 2022, he had a bag full of $289,750 in cash, betting slips for $24,000 and bank deposit letters showing he had deposited $20,000 and $50,000 into his account earlier that year.
Before the start of the 2022 season, Babudar placed two winning $5,000 bets that the Chiefs would win Super Bowl LVII and that Mahomes would be named the game’s MVP. He cashed a $100,000 check from the Argosy Casino in Illinois before hitting the road and used some of his winnings to buy a vehicle that he used to evade authorities.
He was arrested in Sacramento, California in July 2023 and has been in federal custody ever since.
washingtontimes
