Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups have been arrested in connection with a sweeping federal investigation into illegal gambling, authorities announced on Thursday.
“Today, we are here in New York to announce a historic arrest across a wide sweeping criminal enterprise,” the FBI director, Kash Patel, said at a news conference on Thursday. “This is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years.”
Patel said that the FBI worked across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals on charges ranging from “wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery and illegal gambling”.
“The fraud is mind-boggling” Patel said. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery.”
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He added that the operation not only uncovered “the fraud that these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA” but that it also involved La Cosa Nostra, naming the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families.
Joseph Nocella, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said that two indictments were unsealed Thursday, both involving fraud. Nocella said that one involves sports betting and the other is in connection with illegal gambling, specifically “rigged poker games”.
The first indictment, he said, involves six defendants who are “alleged to have participated one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised in the United States”.
“This scheme is an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about National Basketball Association athletes and teams,” Nocella said.
The second indictment, Nocella said, “involves 31 defendants alleged to have participated in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games”.
The defendants, he said, include former professional athletes. The suspects, he said, allegedly used hi-tech cheating technology to “steal millions of dollars from victims in underground poker games that were secretly fixed”.
The games were backed by the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families, Nocella said.
Nocella emphasized that all defendants are presumed innocent until they are proven guilty in a court of law, but said that “my message to the defendants who have been rounded up today is this, your winning streak has ended.”
“Your luck has run out” he said. “Violating the law is a losing proposition, and you can bet on that.”
The NBA had no immediate comment.
Rozier was in uniform as the Heat played the Magic in Orlando on Wednesday evening, though he did not play in the game. He was taken into custody in Orlando early on Thursday morning. The team didn’t immediately comment on the arrest.
A message was left with Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, on Thursday. Trusty previously told ESPN that Rozier was told that an initial investigation determined he did nothing wrong after he met with NBA and FBI officials in 2023.
The case was brought by the same US attorney’s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter. The former Toronto Raptors center pleaded guilty to charges that he withdrew early from games, claiming illness or injury, so that those in the know could win while betting on him to underperform expectations. The NBA later banned Porter from the league for life.
A game involving Rozier that has been in question was played on March 23rd 2023, a matchup between the Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans. Rozier played the first 10 min of that game – and not only did not return that night, citing a foot issue, but did not play again that season. Charlotte had eight games remaining and were not in playoff contention, so it did not seem particularly unusual that Rozier was shut down for the season’s final games.
In that March 23rd game, Rozier finished with five points, four rebounds and two assists in that opening period – a productive quarter, but well below his usual total output for a full game. Posts still online from that day show that some bettors were furious with sportsbooks when it became evident that Rozier was not going to return to the game after the first quarter, with many turning to social media to say that something “shady” had gone on regarding the prop bets involving his stats for that night.
Rozier has $160m in career earnings, and is in the final year of a four-year $96m contract. Billups was a five-time All-Star during his playing career and won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He retired in 2014 and has been Portland head coach since 2021. - Guardian
