After months as a fugitive on the lam, Kansas City Chiefs superfan Xaviar Babudar (aka ChiefsAholic) has been apprehended. Babudar’s capture ended one of the longest fugitive runs in sports entertainment. After being released on bond for his Dec. 16 robbery of the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union, Babudar was ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device upon his release from jail.
However, after he failed to show up for a pretrial hearing on March 27, the device was reportedly tracked down in a wooded area near an Academy Sports + Outdoors store location in southern Tulsa. The strap had been cut off. Babudar’s bail bondsman Michael Lloyd (aka “The Caring Bondsman”) told BroBible that Babudar “cut off his leg monitor at approximately 8:30 P.M. on Saturday, March 25.”As if it wasn’t a strange enough saga, everyone involved apparently had to have a nickname.
On Monday, Babudar was captured in Sacramento, California ending the 107-day manhunt and halting any potential sportsbook prop bets on how long he’d remain an active fugitive.
As far as fugitives go, Babudar’s 107-day run is no match for Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak or Cal Ripken Jr.’s 2,632 consecutive games played streak, or even Dan Marino’s 759 snaps without a sack.
In the year 2023, it seems more daunting than ever to stay off the radar in our modern surveillance state. For months, Babudar hid from the law longer than Patrick Mahomes evading pressure outside the pocket. The degree of difficulty is raised even more by his prominence as a superfan for the NFL’s premier franchise right now.
Babudar was dumb enough to commit the Tulsa robbery that led to his arrest in the wolf costume he wore to Chiefs’ home and away games. But at least he was savvy enough to get out of the Midwest.
Following his initial arrest in December, Babudar was connected to several unsolved bank robberies throughout the Midwest. At the time of Babudar’s arrest, ESPN’s Elizabeth Merrill and David Purdum discovered that Babudar was a prominent gambler, which fueled speculation that he was driven to commit robberies to cover gambling debts. Instead, his love for casinos was merely a cover. In order to launder the money, Babudar purchased and redeemed more than $1 million in chips from various casinos in Missouri and Illinois between April and December 2022.
During that time, Babudar didn’t even live an extravagant lifestyle. The most toxic fan in sports spent $10,000 for an autographed painting of Mahomes at a $1,250-per-head charity event and claimed to be homeless after his arrest.
Now that he’s caught, it’s a safe bet that Babudar won’t be seeing the outside world or any Chiefs games live in 2023 and beyond.