A 50-year-old Chilean national living illegally in the United States was sentenced Wednesday to 36 months in federal prison for stealing former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's purse, and targeting other women in a string of restaurant thefts across Washington, D.C. Mario Bustamante Leiva will face deportation once he finishes his sentence, The Hill reported.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced the sentence after Bustamante Leiva pleaded guilty in November to three counts of wire fraud and one count of first-degree theft. The charges stemmed from incidents across three separate days last April, when federal court filings say Bustamante Leiva moved through D.C. restaurants to "target diners at restaurants in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, stealthily steal their purses, and make fraudulent purchases using the diner's stolen credit cards."
The case drew national attention because one of those victims happened to be the sitting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the very agency tasked with enforcing immigration law against people like Bustamante Leiva.
Noem was dining with her family at Capital Burger on 7th Street NW to celebrate Easter when the theft occurred. Prosecutors said Bustamante Leiva entered the restaurant and "deliberately seated himself within arm's reach of his next victim," whom he did not know at the time was the then-secretary. Surveillance video captured him repeatedly looking down toward Noem's purse before "bending down and snatching it."
The bag was a Gucci handbag, Just The News reported, containing several credit cards and $3,000 in cash. It also held Noem's Department of Homeland Security access badge, a security detail that underscored just how brazen the theft was.
After snatching the purse, Bustamante Leiva traveled to a restaurant in the 2900 block of M Street NW, where surveillance cameras recorded him in possession of Noem's purse, wallet, and at least one of her credit cards, which he used to make an unauthorized purchase, the U.S. Attorney's office stated. He then remained at the restaurant until roughly midnight, when he exited and fell asleep at an outdoor table.
A few days later, authorities tracked Bustamante Leiva to a motel after tracing gift card purchases made on another victim's stolen credit card. A search of his room turned up Noem's purse and wallet, several thousand dollars in cash, and other items.
Prosecutors said Bustamante Leiva entered the United States in August 2021 on a visa that authorized him to stay only until November of that year. He never left. The U.S. Attorney's office stated plainly: "He did not leave and continued to reside in the country illegally."
He was not merely an overstay living quietly. The office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Bustamante Leiva also has active criminal warrants in Utah and New York, details that raise obvious questions about how someone with outstanding warrants in multiple states managed to operate freely in the nation's capital for years.
Noem's tenure at DHS ended before the sentencing. President Trump replaced her at the department with Sen. Markwayne Mullin and reassigned Noem to an envoy role, a move that came amid separate controversies over agency spending and contracts.
Pirro, now serving as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, issued a pointed statement on the sentencing. She framed the case as a straightforward story of an illegal immigrant exploiting the system to victimize Americans.
Pirro told the New York Post:
"Bustamante Leiva came to Washington illegally to prey on citizens of the District. He methodically targeted women at restaurants, stealing their purses, and monetizing the stolen cards within minutes. His pattern of theft ends here. He will serve his prison term and be deported."
Bustamante Leiva did not work alone. His co-defendant, Cristian Montecino-Sanzana, was sentenced in March to 13 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in one of the thefts. Breitbart reported that Bustamante Leiva is expected to be deported to Chile after completing his sentence, a detail that the Justice Department confirmed.
The coordinated nature of the scheme, multiple victims, multiple days, fraudulent purchases executed within minutes, paints a picture of practiced, deliberate criminal conduct, not a crime of impulse.
The broader fallout around Noem's time at DHS has continued to generate headlines. A DHS Inspector General criminal probe was launched into matters involving Noem and adviser Corey Lewandowski over no-bid contracts, a separate matter unrelated to the purse theft but part of the political backdrop surrounding her departure from the agency.
The facts of the Bustamante Leiva case read like a catalog of immigration enforcement failures. A man enters the country on a visa in August 2021. The visa expires months later. He stays. He accumulates criminal warrants in Utah and New York. He moves to Washington, D.C. He methodically robs women at restaurants. One of his victims turns out to be the head of the very department responsible for removing people like him.
None of those warrants, none of that overstay status, stopped him before he sat down next to Kristi Noem on Easter and lifted her bag.
Newsmax noted that Noem was dining under Secret Service protection at the time, a fact that makes the successful theft all the more striking. Bustamante Leiva managed to steal the purse of a Cabinet secretary surrounded by federal agents, then walked out, used her credit cards, and fell asleep at an outdoor table.
Congressional scrutiny of DHS operations has intensified on multiple fronts. Separately, Rep. Nancy Mace pushed for a subpoena over $220 million in DHS ad spending during Noem's tenure, adding to the list of accountability questions facing the department.
The three-year sentence and pending deportation close one chapter. But the open questions, how a visa overstay with warrants in two states operated freely for years, how a purse theft succeeded feet from a Secret Service detail, and what other victims went unnoticed before this case broke, remain unanswered.
Three years in prison and a plane ticket home. For the women whose purses were stolen and whose credit cards were drained within minutes, that's the system finally catching up, years late and only by accident, because the thief happened to pick the wrong target.