A migrant from Chile will spend three years in prison after he stole purses from multiple people in Washington, D.C., including former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to prosecutors.
Mario Bustamante Leiva received a 36-month prison sentence Wednesday in connection with a “string of thefts,” one of which included stealing Noem’s Gucci purse while she was dining with her family last year, the Justice Department said in a statement.
He will be subject to deportation after his prison sentence ends.
Bustamante Leiva, 50, pleaded guilty in November to three counts of wire fraud and one count of first-degree theft. He was accused of targeting women who were dining at Washington-area restaurants across three days in April 2025.
“During the offenses, Bustamante Leiva surveilled his targets, stole purses containing wallets, credit cards, and personal identifying information, and used the stolen cards to make fraudulent purchases within minutes of each theft,” the Justice Department said.
Bustamante Leiva stole Noem’s purse — which contained credit cards and about $3,000 in cash — on April 20, 2025, while she and her family were eating dinner at Capital Burger, prosecutors said. At the time, he did not realize the victim was Noem.
Noem’s children and grandchildren were in town that day, and she was planning on treating them to “dinner, activities and Easter gifts,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the New York Times last year.
“She could feel this person as they snatched her bag, but thought they were her grandchildren playing until realizing a minute later that her bag was gone,” the spokesperson said. “Her bag was under her feet and the perpetrator hooked the bag with his foot and dragged it across the floor and put a coat over it and took it.”
Afterward, Bustamante Leiva was seen on security footage at another restaurant with Noem’s “purse, wallet, and at least one of her credit cards, which he used to make an unauthorized purchase,” the Justice Department said. He was arrested at a motel six days later.
Bustamante Leiva was also linked to two other purse thefts, one of which also involved his co-defendant, Cristian Montecino-Sanzana, the Justice Department said. Montecino-Sanzana was sentenced in March to 13 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and will also face deportation afterward.
Bustamante Leiva’s attorney said his conduct was “related to his alcohol use and addiction,” according to a sentencing memo he filed last week.
“Immediately after his arrest, Mr. Bustamante Leiva went through a period of serious and life-threatening alcohol withdrawal. But he has since become sober,” the filing reads.
His attorney also argued that the case’s facts are “more indicative of a man who was fighting an addiction and not of someone who was making sophisticated plans to defraud victims and enrich himself.”
Bustamante Leiva entered the U.S. in August 2021, but remained in the country “illegally” after his visa waiver ended in November 2021, the Justice Department said. He also has “active warrants in Utah and New York stemming from 2021 charges involving retail theft, credit card theft, and stolen property,” according to the department’s statement.
The Independent has contacted attorneys representing Bustamante Leiva and Montecino-Sanzana for comment.
