Xaviar Babudar, well known by NFL fans as “ChiefsAholic,” was arrested on December 16 after allegedly robbing the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union in Bixby, Oklahoma. The 28-year-old man, who faces charges of robbery with a dangerous weapon and assault while masked or disguised, is now missing after his ankle monitor was removed last weekend. According to the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office, Judge Michelle Keely issued a warrant for Babudar’s arrest on March 27 with a bond set for $1 million when he failed to appear in court for an arraignment hearing.[1]
Michael Lloyd, a bail bondsman who paid Babudar’s previous $80,000 bond (which was reduced from $200,000), reported that he received a notification on the evening of March 25 that Babudar’s ankle monitor had been removed without authorization. When Lloyd went to the hotel where Babudar had been staying, he was nowhere to be found. On March 26, a Tulsa police officer found Babudar’s monitor with its strap cut off in a wooded area near a store called Academy Sports + Outdoors. Babudar failed to respond to repeated attempts to contact him. Xaviar’s attorney Tracy Tiernan said that he had not heard from his client in the week preceding the man’s disappearance. The District Attorney proceeded to file an additional charge of removing an electronic monitoring device as it is believed Babudar is on the run.[2]
The Robbery
On the morning of December 16, Babudar walked into the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union and pointed a black pistol at the bank teller. Babudar demanded that Payton Garcia give him “the 100s” or he’d “put a bullet in [her] head.” Garcia recalled that the armed robber jumped over the counter, knocked down the plexiglass window, and told her to open the vault. As Babudar pointed a gun at her back, Garcia and a co-worker struggled to open the safe. She remembers Babudar becoming more verbally aggressive with each passing moment. The vault was only minutes away from locking up due to a safety mechanism by the time Babudar finally collected the money.[3]
Todd Blish, the Bixby Chief of Police, announced that “the quick and decisive action of the witness permitted Bixby police officers to respond in less than two minutes and have the suspect in custody within six minutes.”[4] Babudar took off from the credit union with cash and was arrested a few blocks away. Prosecutors stated that the suspect fled the scene riding a bicycle while wearing a green hoodie and pants with a hood over his head, a mask over his face, and gloves on his hands. Upon Babudar’s arrest, authorities found him in possession of a paintball mask, ski goggles, a pair of gloves, a green zip-up jacket, green sweatpants, black shoes, a black CO2 pistol, and a large bag containing $150,000 cash inside a backpack. Officers alleged that Babudar was uncooperative and would not provide them with his name or any other information.[5]
Babudar was apprehended and later pleaded not guilty to the charges. Robbery with a firearm carries a sentence of five years to life in prison in Oklahoma, whereas assault while masked or disguised ranges from a two to five-year sentence. Removing or even tampering with an electronic monitoring device could also result in a felony conviction and will probably make it unlikely that a court will ever consider allowing Babudar to use a similar piece of equipment again.[6]
The Mystery Surrounding Xaviar Babudar
Who is the man behind the ChiefsAholic Twitter account and real-life wolf costume? How does he earn a living that allows him to attend every Chiefs game no matter if it’s home or away? These are just a couple of questions NFL fans pondered regarding one of the most famous fans in Chiefs Kingdom. Babudar entertained over 40,000 followers with stories about his travels throughout the county in support of the Chiefs. He often portrayed himself as young and successful on social media. His posts depicted a Kansas State graduate who managed warehouses for a living, a man in a wolf suit firing up his fellow Chiefs fans at tailgates, and a bachelor who was unafraid to place large, risky wagers to display loyalty to his beloved team.[7]
Chiefs fans soon found out that Babudar’s façade masked a much different reality. The ChiefsAholic Twitter account went radio silent leading up to the Chiefs-Texans game on December 18. Chiefs fans quickly grew concerned about his absence from social media. It was unusual for him to be quiet, especially on game day. The ChiefsAholic persona had grown to mean something in Chiefs Kingdom. Fans would seek Babudar out at tailgates, hoping to capture a picture with the wolf-man. He was a staple at every Chiefs game and he even made an appearance at Super Bowl LIV in Miami in 2020. Most of ChiefsAholic’s appeal was that he was living the life that other NFL fans wished they could. Babudar held giveaways on Twitter where he would pick a lucky follower to attend a professional sporting event with him or reward them with a Chiefs jersey or shoes. Earlier in December, Xaviar attended Mahomes’s charity event which cost $1,250 per ticket, where he won an autographed painting of the quarterback worth $10,000.[8]
Xaviar Babudar at Patrick Mahomes’s charity event – Image from ESPN
After several days without any online activity from ChiefsAholic, his followers on Twitter implored the Chiefs’ official account to help them locate the superfan. Worried Chiefs fans turned internet sleuths were shocked to find his mugshot in an eastern Oklahoma jail. People began questioning the man behind the wolf costume. Whom had they trusted? What else didn’t they know about the man whom many viewed as the face of the fanbase? ESPN interviewed a woman who met Babudar in person. Lindsay True said that Babudar told her he lived in an apartment in Chesterfield, Missouri, an affluent suburb of St. Louis. Xaviar also claimed that he had family in Los Angeles. True had no reason to doubt him. Another man interviewed by ESPN said that Babudar invited him to a Phoenix Suns game in October of 2022. Deion Hulse “almost envied” Babudar’s lifestyle and couldn’t believe they were sitting in the 11th row at an NBA game.[9]
The truth was that Babudar and his family have a long history of legal trouble. ChiefsAholic was a fraud. He did not graduate from Kansas State. He was homeless, self-employed, and unable to afford an attorney. He was not a self-made millionaire who managed warehouses. In fact, Babudar worked at Amazon for seven months making $12 per hour before he voluntarily resigned in 2018. His only record of employment showed that he helped run a family antiques business.[10]
Although a spokesperson for the FBI in Oklahoma City did not confirm nor deny whether Babudar was under investigation for other robberies, Babudar’s numerous run-ins with the law have spanned more than a decade. Court documents and police records provide a detailed history of the Babudar family moving from California to Utah to Missouri. Xaviar, his mother Carla, and his brother Noah face allegations of petty crime at every stop. It all started when Xaviar’s father abandoned his family and filed for bankruptcy in 2004. This event left the mother and her two sons in a devastating financial situation. In 2009, Carla pleaded guilty to theft at a grocery store. She was also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and refused to give police her name and address. In 2012, Carla and her sons were arrested on charges of forging meal certificates and disturbing the peace. By the time Xaviar was 21, he was charged with stealing from a Target and accused of switching price tags on merchandise before returning the mismarked items to retrieve the higher dollar amount. On at least five separate occasions from 2014 to 2017, officers in Overland Park, Kansas were dispatched to ask the Babudars to leave the premises of various businesses, including multiple hotel and restaurant parking lots where they were all sleeping in a car.[11]
An extensive criminal history of petty crime still fails to account for Xaviar Babudar’s seemingly lavish lifestyle. The question of where he got his money from is left unanswered. Was it gambling? Was it robbing banks? Was it a combination of both? Babudar boasted about his bets on Twitter, routinely posting screenshots of $1,000 parlays placed through FanDuel’s online sportsbook. In October of 2022, Babudar shared a picture of a $1,000 bet on Chiefs backup tight end Jody Fortson, a Buffalo native, to score a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 18-1 odds. Fortson scored and Babudar secured an $18,000 win. However, most of the wagers he circulated on social media were losers.[12]
Two months before the Tulsa bank robbery, an $80,000 bet was placed at Hollywood Casino in Kansas City, Kansas on the Chiefs to beat the Buffalo Bills. The Bills were favored in the contest, so the casino’s sportsbook posted the ticket on social media to capitalize on the hype and gain publicity. The bettor was not officially named; however, multiple patrons insisted that casino employees told them Babudar had placed the wager. One employee at the Hollywood Casino sportsbook even tweeted that he accepted the bet from Babudar, but he later deleted the post because it violated company policy. The Bills went on to beat the Chiefs 24-20.[13]
It is unknown whether his family has been able to cash in on what would be Babudar’s biggest gambling victory. Before the start of the NFL season, Xaviar shared a photo on Instagram of a $5,000 futures bet on the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl and Patrick Mahomes to win regular-season MVP. If legitimate, the payout would net $90,000. We all know what happened next. The Chiefs beat the Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII and Patrick Mahomes was named regular-season and Super Bowl MVP.
Assistant District Attorney Morgan Medders announced that Babudar had a check in his car for $78,000 and a tax form that showed he had acquired around $150,000 in a recent year. The search warrant for Babudar’s car also revealed documents showing two bank accounts totaling roughly $58,000 in assets. This is a lot of money considering Babudar was a homeless man. Receipts in his car prove that Babudar engaged in high-stakes gambling. Many wagers placed by Babudar totaled in the thousands, occasionally ranging from $4,000 to $20,000.[14]
A Lesson for Teams who Adopt their Rabid Fans
Social media has provided people with the power to become influencers among their respective fanbases. It has also given fans a place to build a community around a shared interest. The best-case scenario results in a group becoming something that resembles Bills Mafia, a phenomenon where people are brought together by jumping through tables and raising millions of dollars for charities around the country. However, the opposite can just as easily occur. ChiefsAholic profited socially and financially by defrauding his fellow members of Chiefs Kingdom as well as other fans from around the NFL. On the surface, Babudar was admired for his generosity and relentless fandom. Fans truly believed that he individually represented all things good that are associated with being a Chiefs fan. Babudar had tens of thousands of people fooled that he had achieved financial freedom through hard work, which allowed him to follow his favorite franchise to wherever they played.
Inspiration turned into feelings of betrayal and disappointment for the majority of Chiefs fans. A man that fans thought they knew and looked up to suddenly appeared to be the complete stranger that he actually was. Few people even knew Babudar’s name. Everyone simply got attached to the idea of whom they thought he was and supported him because he loved their team. In reality, Babudar was capable of being a dangerous criminal on the lam.
The circumstances surrounding every aspect of this story are very strange and illustrate the complexity and dangers of the internet. It is a modern tale that should remind us not to believe everything that we see online. We are in an age where the Bixby police can reply to a tweet from Pat McAfee to confirm that Babudar was arrested in Oklahoma and not Texas. Less than a month later, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce called Babudar a “legend” on McAfee’s show. Now, the Kelce brothers have apparently invited ChiefsAholic onto their “New Heights” podcast with a promise not to turn the runaway fugitive in to authorities “for the sake of journalism.”[15]
Every NFL fanbase has dozens of influencers and internet personalities. It’s understandable why we are so fast to get behind these entertainers who share a deep passion for our team. Their creative content keeps us tuned in even throughout the offseason and brings us all closer together as a community. Nevertheless, think twice the next time you support one of these fanatics with your time and money. Are they really who they say they are? Where do their true loyalties lie? Who is the person behind the mask or the makeup?
[1] https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35971241/xaviar-babudar-chiefs-fan-missing-million-bond-issued
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
Photo Credit:
ChiefsAholic with the Lombardi Trophy –https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35652559/chiefsaholic-kansas-city-chiefs-superfan-arrested-robbery
Xaviar Babudar at Patrick Mahomes’ charity event –https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35652559/chiefsaholic-kansas-city-chiefs-superfan-arrested-robbery
3L JD/MBA at the University at Buffalo School of Law; BSELS Treasurer
Interested in a career at the intersection of law and business, particularly in sports.
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