Illegal migrant accused of snatching Kristi Noem's Gucci purse was free after similar crime in NYC last month

Yahoo

29-04-2025

This guy's a Noem criminal.
The illegal migrant who was busted for snatching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's Gucci purse was picked up by cops in New York for a similar crime just a few weeks earlier — but they let him go with a desk appearance ticket and a court date.
The NYPD's warrant squad was hunting for Chilean national Mario Bustamante-Leiva, 49 — because he never showed up to court — when he allegedly ripped off Noem during Easter dinner with her family at a Washington, DC, burger bar, law enforcement sources told The Post.
After swiping Noem's purse — which contained $3,000 cash, her passport, wallet and government ID — he hopped a bus and sidled up to the bar at Angolo Ristorante Italiano in DC, where he boozed it up until midnight and rang up $205.87 on the DHS honcho's American Express, according to documents released by prosecutors Monday.
The feds also released surveillance images of Bustamante-Leiva wearing a white face mask and a baseball cap before and after he allegedly stole Noem's $4,000 luxury bag from under her feet at The Capital Burger. Another picture allegedly showed the accused serial thief at Angolo — Noem's Gucci bag clearly in view — while chatting on the cell phone.
The high-profile theft was the fourth he pulled off in eight days, authorities said. He copped to stealing Noem's bag, but said he didn't know who she was when he snatched the pricey bag from the floor while she dined, according to court docs.
Bustamante-Leiva's rap sheet also includes a 2021 shoplifting arrest in Utah and a headline-grabbing bust across the pond in London in 2015, where he was arrested for a months-long theft spree and charged with palming $28,000 in phones, wallets, and computers.
He landed on NYPD's radar on March 2 after he swiped a fanny pack from a Times Square dosa shop and racked up $1,200 in credit card charges in just 20 minutes, according to the victim, an international student from India.
The victim told The Post that he forgot his bag at the eatery for just a few minutes, and it was gone when he came back. Good Samaritans pointed out the thief, whom he described as a 'little old man' wearing a COVID mask.
Cops swooped on Bustamante-Leiva in about 30 minutes, but the damage was already done, and the student had tons of unauthorized charges on his card, he said.
The victim, who lives in Jersey City and asked not to be named, said he's furious that Bustamante-Leiva was let go with just a desk appearance ticket after being arrested.
'That's insane. I don't know how he was let out after that without any reason,' the student said.
'I mean, putting in so much effort and then coming to the States and experiencing something like that intrigued my frightened side.'
He said he's still out $500 that the credit card company never reimbursed him for.
After his arrest, NYPD cops gave Bustamante-Leiva, who said he lived in the Bronx, a desk appearance ticket on fourth-degree felony grand larceny charges and released him. When he didn't show up for his court date, officers went looking for him, law enforcement sources said.
New York's sanctuary laws meant that the NYPD was not allowed to report him to federal immigration authorities, despite being in the country illegally.
'Years ago, people would be held on ICE detainers if somebody was known to be in the country unlawfully and committed crimes,' former Manhattan prosecutor Mark A. Bederow fumed. 'That would be a no-brainer hold … these kinds of crimes would not be committed if the policies were stronger. That's just the reality.'
It's unclear whether Bustamante-Leiva's previous busts showed up on his criminal record when Manhattan cops arrested him and let him go.
It's common for the NYPD to hand out tickets and court dates to people arrested for lower-level theft, even if it's a felony.
Bustamante-Leiva and his accomplice in the Noem bag snatch, Cristian Rodrigo Montecino-Sanzana, are believed to be part of a large East Coast robbery organization, sources said.
The two men allegedly worked together and have committed similar robbery schemes across the US, sources said.
Bustamante-Leiva told investigators that he's an alcoholic and that he has memory problems, but he clearly remembered taking the Gucci bag. He said he kept the wallet and the purse — but dumped the other contents in the trash, according to docs.
He claimed to have no idea who Noem was and didn't remember who he stole from.
In addition to his splurge at the DC red-sauce joint, feds accused Bustamante-Leiva of using the ill-gotten gains from a string of other robberies nearby in the preceding days – again blowing other people's cash to buy booze, including a bottle of Josh cabernet sauvignon at a DC supermarket.
He also bought gift cards worth hundreds of dollars with credit cards and cash from stolen bags, prosecutors said.
In those incidents – two on April 17, at a DC coffee shop and a Westin Hotel restaurant, and one at another restaurant on April 12 — Bustamante-Leiva demonstrated his sticky-fingered prowess by slyly approaching his victims and slipping bags from their chairs, or using his legs to covertly inch their belongings closer to him, security footage showed.
In the April 12 theft, he was careful to slip a jacket over his arm before approaching his victim, and with the help of an accomplice, allegedly swiped the bag from his victim and hid it under his coat before walking off.
He used credit cards from that theft for stays at a Motel 6 and a Quality Inn over the following days, the documents alleged.
Bustamante-Leiva was taken into custody in Washington, DC, on Saturday, while his alleged accomplice was nabbed in Miami on Sunday.
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory, Emily Crane, and Alex Oliveira.