Arrests made in the theft of Kristi Noem’s purse and thousands in cash

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is pictured on March 27 in Bogota, Colombia. (Alex Brandon/Pool/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)

Two arrests have been made in the theft of the theft of a high-end Gucci bag belonging to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

The primary suspect was arrested in Washington, DC, and is in custody, according to the US Secret Service. USSS said in a Sunday evening news release it made a second arrest in Miami in connection with the theft. The agency said that person “is believed to be a co-conspirator” with the primary defendant.

The arrests came after the US Secret Service launched an investigation to find the perpetrator who stole her bag as she ate dinner with her family on Easter Sunday.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service initially declined to comment on the arrest, but in a statement to CNN Sunday, Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool said the primary “the defendant is a serial offender.”

“We have also determined that this incident had no protective nexus to Secretary Noem or her role as Secretary of Homeland Security. The investigation revealed alleged criminal activity, including potential device and credit card fraud,” McCool said.

Multiple additional arrests are expected in a theft ring recently which recently targetedWashington, DC’s, Penn Quarter area, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Noem thanked the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a post on X on Sunday and described the primary suspect as 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,” Noem wrote.

As CNN previously reported, surveillance footage of the incident at The Capital Burger restaurant in Washington, DC, showed the suspect purposefully moving close to Noem as he zeroed in on her Gucci bag near her feet, a second law enforcement source said.

The thief, dressed in dark clothing, sat down at an empty table next to Noem with his back facing her and used his left foot to slide the bag away, the source said. He surveyed the restaurant before eventually picking up the bag, covering it with his jacket and leaving.

Only when Noem got up from the table did she realize her bag was missing, the source said.

Items inside the bag included a Louis Vuitton Clemence wallet, Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash, multiple sources said.

CNN reached out to The Capital Burger’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The Secret Service was inside the restaurant with Noem, who was dining at a table with her family, according to a source familiar. The source didn’t specify how many agents accompanied Noem or where they were inside the restaurant.

Commenting on the large sum of cash Noem was carrying immediately following the incident, a DHS spokesperson said: “Her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren – she was using the withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities, and Easter gifts.”

Law enforcement experts have raised concerns about whether the incident, which involved a thief getting so close to a Cabinet official and then absconding with her belongings, may have been a lapse in security.

Secret Service “will maintain jurisdiction over the case and intends to present its findings to a federal court in coordination with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia,” McCool said.

This story was updated with comment from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and to reflect that there was a second arrest.

CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg, Kit Maher and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.