A Netflix crime thriller, Baby Bandito is a fictional retelling of a true event involving a Chilean man, Kevin Olguín Sepúlveda, who committed a grand heist of seven million pesos from an airport in Santiago, Chile. However, while the premise of the story is based on a true incident, some of the characters are completely fictionalized. The showmakers took creative liberties by adding depth and conflict to the characters’ lives to create a dramatic effect. One of these fictional characters who didn’t exist in real life but made a huge impact on the storyline is Felipe Munoz, aka Panda, Kevin’s childhood best friend. Let’s talk about his character to know what happened to him in the end.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did Panda And Kevin’s Relationship End?
Felipe Munoz, aka Panda, was Kevin Tapia’s best friend and had always been a great source of support in Kevin’s life. From a young age, Kevin and Panda were two inseparable souls, but with time, their friendship faded away and turned to animosity. Since the day Kevin fell in love with Genesis and pursued a romantic relationship with her, he began to spend most of his time with his girlfriend, while Panda, who was shy and not a very outgoing person, couldn’t even speak about his feelings to whomever he liked. The growing distance between these two friends marked the beginning of the end of their long-standing friendship. Panda was not inspired by any real-life friends of Kevin Olguin, but we can say that his character might take a little bit of inspiration from Kevin’s real-life brother Fabian. Fabian was a robber in the heist committed by Kevin Olguin, but having no strong evidence that Fabian was one of the robbers, the court acquitted him. Like Fabian, Panda was never pursued by the police due to the lack of strong evidence that he was one of the robbers.
In the series, after committing the heist at the Santiago airport, when Kevin’s group of robbers began to worry about how to spend the money, Panther, one of the robbers, suggested that they shouldn’t spend all of it but rather keep it somewhere safe to use it in the future, but Genesis, who was eager to start a new life with Kevin abroad, urged her boyfriend to leave the group alone in Santiago and move to Europe. Initially reluctant to take such a drastic step, Kevin chose to stay, but as he was deeply in love with Genesis, he couldn’t abandon her. He chose to move away with Genesis with their share of money, leaving his group all alone in the country. Panda couldn’t take this betrayal and decided to cut all ties with his best friend, who became dead to him.
What Happened To Panda?
We have no idea whether or not Fabian and Kevin’s relationship was damaged because of the girlfriend, but in the series, this was what happened. The Butchers crime family, who were after Kevin Tapia and the money that he stole, was also a fictional addition to the story. In reality, there was no gang with whom Kevin Olguin or his brother were involved. However, in the series, when Kevin was caught by the authorities in Italy and brought into custody, he managed to elude the police. On the excuse of visiting his newborn son, Kevin managed to escape the hospital, knocking down two officers. But as he met Panda afterward, he initially thought that his best friend had forgiven him because of the past betrayal and extended his hands to welcome him back, but Kevin was entirely wrong. Panda did welcome Kevin back into his life, but it was all a ruse. When Kevin left for Italy, Panda made up his mind to take revenge on his friend, who had betrayed his trust. The Panda we saw before the heist and the Panda, whom Kevin met after he escaped the prison had a lot of differences.
Panda, who used to be timid and socially awkward, turned into a revenge-seeking criminal. He became involved with one of the members of the Butchers, Pablo, and together they decided to take their revenge on Kevin, but Kevin eventually realized that Panda had not forgiven him and had hatched a plan to execute him. Kevin wanted to run away from Chile, taking his love, Genesis, and their son, so he was in need of money. Therefore, Kevin had previously asked Panda for help and Panda agreed to lend him the money to win his trust, but later when Kevin came to find out the truth that Panda was associated with Pablo, he decided to trick him. Kevin called his other fellow members from the group, Mistica and Panther, who arrived at the spot where Panda was supposed to hand over the money to Kevin. But as Panda found out that Kevin had once again escaped, he felt betrayed once more. Even the Butchers were involved in this due to Pablo, who intended to kill Kevin, but a massive shootout among the robbers and the gang members ensued, which claimed some of their lives. Panda managed to survive and felt guilty for wasting his time and energy by taking revenge on his best friend, Kevin. At the end of everything, neither Panda nor Kevin could have the happy ending they had expected. Kevin remained on the run as the police were after him, so he became unable to reunite with his family ever again. In the meantime, it ended tragically for Panda, who turned himself in and spent his prison time in Chile.
In real life, we have no explicit knowledge about Fabian Olguin regarding what exactly happened to him at the end. As season 1 of Baby Bandito ended, it gave us a hint that Netflix might bring another sequel to the series, where we might expect Panda’s return in the narrative. As the show is entirely fictional except for the core event in the series, another season might bring new surprises regarding Kevin’s comeback and the changes he had gone through in his life after running away from the authorities.
