A Chilean national with a decades-long criminal record faces deportation after he pleaded guilty to stealing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s cash-stuffed Gucci handbag.
Mario Bustamante Leiva, 50, admitted in federal court last Friday to three counts of wire fraud and first-degree theft tied to a spree of April incidents across downtown D.C., according to the Washington Post. His plea adds to a rap sheet that federal filings say spans Chile, the U.K., and the United States.
But it was his targeting of Noem, 51, which really led to Bustamante Leiva’s downfall—and allowed her to get the ultimate revenge on the thief.
Noem—who has a permanent Secret Service detail—had been dining with her family at Capital Burger in the city when the masked thief swiped her Gucci bag containing her DHS badge, passport, driver’s license, keys, checks, and $3,000 in cash.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously said she had withdrawn the money because her children and grandchildren were visiting for Easter.
“This individual is a career criminal who has been in our country illegally for years,” Noem said in a statement earlier this year. She tied the theft to her warnings about undocumented immigrants and defended the administration’s aggressive deportation push.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the Post, “We’re glad to see justice was served and this criminal illegal alien will no longer be free on America’s streets to victimize more Americans.”
Prosecutors say Bustamante Leiva’s short spree began April 12, when he and an accomplice lifted a purse from a diner at Nando’s across from the National Portrait Gallery, then used her credit card to buy a $500 Visa gift card, spent at a Motel 6, a Quality Inn, and on Metro credit.
Five days later, he targeted a woman dining at the downtown Westin, using her card to purchase a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and an American Express gift card.
Two days after that, he struck Capital Burger and made off with Noem’s designer handbag. It was a bad move that would lead to his eventual arrest.
According to Bustamante Leiva’s DOJ indictment, Noem—identified as “Victim-3”—was dining under Secret Service protection at Capital Burger when she noticed the Gucci purse at her feet had vanished.
Agents reviewed CCTV showing Bustamante Leiva entering the restaurant at 7:52 p.m., sliding his chair toward Noem, looking down toward her belongings, then twisting his body and sweeping her purse off the floor.
Footage captured him bending down, lifting the bag with one hand while holding his jacket in the other, and calmly walking out of the restaurant.
Secret Service agents then reconstructed his escape in extraordinary detail. Investigators said he fled onto Massachusetts Avenue NW, discarding Noem’s driver’s license along the way, before boarding a Metrobus in Chinatown.
Minutes later, cameras showed him exiting near 30th and M Streets NW and strolling into Angolo Ristorante Italiano, where he sat at the bar until midnight and made five food and alcohol purchases totaling $205.87 using Noem’s American Express cards.
Surveillance footage at the bar showed him in possession of her stolen purse, wallet, and multiple credit cards.
Bustamante Leiva’s criminal history includes a 1995 robbery sentence in Chile and at least seven theft convictions in London beginning in 2013, according to federal records cited by the Post.
Bustamante Leiva acknowledged in court papers that he “is removable from the United States upon the completion of the sentence imposed in this case.” He has not yet been sentenced.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
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