A former National Basketball Association (NBA) player and an NBA coach have been arrested along with 32 others in mafia-backed money laundering schemes, “reminiscent of a Hollywood movie,” U.S. officials announced on Oct. 23.
FBI Director Kash Patel at a press conference described the schemes as “an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years.”
“It’s not hundreds of dollars. It’s not thousands of dollars. It’s not tens of thousands of dollars. It’s not even millions of dollars. We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery,” Patel said.
The most elaborate scheme involved illegal poker games involving hi-tech equipment, including “rigged shuffling machines and specially designed contact lenses and sunglasses to read the backs of playing cards.”
Former NBA players and other professional athletes known as “face cards” would lure unsuspecting victims, known as “fish,” into high-stakes underground poker games, where they would be cheated out of “tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game,” according to U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella.
Everyone in the game, apart from the victims, would be in on the scam.
A typical game would involve a self-shuffling machine that could read the cards, sending the information of who had the winning hand to an off-site operator who would then send a text message to a co-conspirator at the game, known as the “quarterback” or “driver.”
Other technologies used included chip tray analyzers that could read all cards using hidden cameras, and X-ray tables that could read cards face down.
Since 2019, the underground poker games that were subject to the schemes have been played across the country. In the New York area, they were backed by the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese crime families of La Cosa Nostra, who would also enforce payments from victims.
La Cosa Nostra, commonly known as the mafia, consists of five families that have been operating in the United States since the 1920s, although in recent years they have become less prominent.
Thirty-one arrests in the primary case were made across 11 states, including NBA coach Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trail Blazers, former NBA player and coach Damon Jones, and various mafia members.
A second case, which involves former NBA player Terry Rozier, National Football League player De’Niro Laster, and Mississippi resident Marves Fairley, alleges an insider sports betting conspiracy.
In that case, between December 2022 and March 2024, Rozier, Laster, Fairley, and three other named defendants allegedly created a scheme that involved using inside information from NBA players and coaches to profit on illegal sports betting.
These included information on when a player would be playing or when a player would leave a game due to a purported injury.
One such incident occurred during a Charlotte Hornets game in March 2023, when Rozier allegedly faked an injury and left the game early to collude on a bet on him underperforming in that game.
“The defendants turned professional basketball into a criminal betting operation, using private locker room and medical information to enrich themselves and cheat legitimate sportsbooks,” Nocella said.
Jones, along with Eric Earnest and Shane Hennen, were the only three defendants charged in both cases.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
