An illegal alien with a lengthy criminal history has been arrested for snatching the purse of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem at a restaurant in Washington D.C.
Sec. Noem was enjoying a meal with her family at The Capital Burger on Easter Sunday when a suspect wearing a mask swiped the Gucci handbag containing her passport, DHS badge, $3,000 cash, and other valuables and forms of ID.
“It was kind of shocking, actually, because it was sitting right by my feet. I actually felt my purse — he hooked it with his foot and drug it a few steps away, dropped a coat over it, and took it,” Noem explained during an interview days later.
“I thought it was my grandkids kicking me in the legs, but it was very professionally done.”
On Saturday, DC Metro Police and the Secret Service arrested Mario Bustamante-Leiva, a 49-year-old Chilean national who is illegally present in the U.S.
Authorities say Bustamante-Leiva is part of an “East Coast robbery organization” and that he was working with another illegal alien who remains on the loose, according to the New York Post.
Bustamante-Leiva was previously dubbed “one of London’s most prolific thieves” by the Daily Mail after he was convicted of stealing roughly $28,000 worth of personal electronics, wallets, and valuables from innocent victims during a five-month span in 2014.
“Thank you to Secret Service, ICE, and our law enforcement partners for finding and arresting the criminal who stole my bag on Easter Sunday as I shared a meal with my family at a Washington DC restaurant,” Sec. Noem wrote on social media on Sunday. “This individual is a career criminal who has been in our country illegally for years.”
“Unfortunately, so many families in this country have been made victims by crime, and that’s why President Trump is working every single day to make America safe and get these criminal aliens off of our streets.”
An investigation is ongoing.