The story began in December when a man named Xavier Babudar was arrested in Bixby, Oklahoma, after robbing the Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union.
Social media lit up with assertions that Babudar was better known as Kansas City football superfan ChiefsAholic. This was difficult to prove for certain as the ChiefsAholic's whole schtick was dressing up like a wolf in Chief's gear. Even though he was a familiar sight at Chief's home and away games, the vast majority of the people who rooted alongside him and posed with him for selfies had no idea who was beneath the mask.
Eventually, law enforcement did confirm that the alleged bank robber Babudar and the ChiefsAholic were one and the same.
Then, earlier this week, the story got even nuttier when federal prosecutors announced multiple charges of bank robbery against Babudar and said that he'd been arrested in California. Federal prosecutors even made a handy graphic to help the public visualize the alleged crime spree.
To try to help the Riverfront Times better understand this football true crime saga, we reached out to Kansas City Star journalist Anna Spoerre, who has been reporting on the ChiefsAholic, to catch us up as well as to talk about the unique difficulties in reporting on a public figure who may be a criminal and is always wearing a wolf costume.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Who was the ChiefsAholic before all the bank robbery stuff started coming to light?
He was posting all these photos in his wolf outfit decked out in Chiefs gear, usually at games or Chiefs events. I remember trying to find a photo of his face and having a hard time doing that because almost all of his photos were him in his wolf costume, which is how most people knew him. When we were trying to do the initial reporting on him back in December, it was hard to find people who actually knew who he was beneath his wolf mask. They said, "Oh, yeah, we posed with him for photos. But we never saw his face to know who he actually was." He was this character that was at games all the time.
Then what happened in December?
In December, we started seeing people on Twitter saying that ChiefsAholic had been arrested for bank robbery. Of course, we were curious and trying to learn more. We found a man by the name of Xavier Babudar had been arrested in a bank robbery in Bixby, Oklahoma. There were also rumors on social media that he was wearing his wolf mask at the time of the robbery, which later proven false — though that would have made for a great story. It took a while to confirm who he was. There were various spellings of his name in court records. But we did learn that this person who was arrested lived in Overland Park, Kansas. That was one of the ways we were able to confirm that he at least had a local connection and might be the same person as ChiefsAholic.
What's been going on recently? It looks like it wasn't just the one bank robbery, but it was several?
Social media was full of theories and rumors about this guy back in December, one of which was that he was going around and robbing banks on his way to Chiefs games. It looks like that is not the case, based on what we're seeing from the affidavit that came out yesterday. But it does look like he allegedly robbed multiple banks. They just didn't happen to line up with the Chiefs' away games. His initial charges in Oklahoma were state charges, but he's now faces federal charges. After his arrest in Oklahoma, he bonded out, and then he cut off his ankle monitor, was what law enforcement said, and did not show up for his following court appearances. After about four months, they did find him in California.
U.S. Attorney's Office
A graphic of the ChiefsAholic's alleged crimes included in a federal court filing.
He now faces federal charges for four additional bank robberies and then two attempted robberies at two banks where he walked in, and it seems they didn't have enough on hand for him to take, so he left.
When this is whole thing is dramatized into a film or a Netflix show, who do you think should play the ChiefsAholic?
I'm the wrong person to ask on this. I am not much of a movie buff. I might leave that one for you to decide.
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