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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the arrests of 34 people, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA guard and coach Damon Jones, as part of a broad investigation into an illegal gambling scheme.
FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed at a news conference in New York on Thursday that the investigation was linked to an investigation involving members of the La Cosa Nostra crime families and focused on an illegal gambling operation and sports fixing operations that “spanned several years.”
“Not only did we dismantle the fraud committed by these perpetrators on the big stage of the NBA, but we also seized and executed a system of justice against La Cosa Nostra to include the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families.”
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“It takes courageous prosecutors to stand before you and say: we will not allow this kind of illicit activity to happen, not only at the national sporting level, but also where it hides in La Cosa Nostra,” Patel added. “And when these two collided, they perpetrated a historic fraud not only in terms of money, but also in the scheme and deception that they use to steal and defraud people to include crypto fraud.”
NBA coach Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trail Blazers and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested Thursday for alleged involvement in illegal gambling. Billups, a former Detroit Pistons star and NBA Hall of Famer, was arrested in connection with rigged illegal poker games linked to the Mafia, FBI Director Kash Patel said. Rozier and a former NBA player, Damon Jones, were arrested in a sports betting case, Patel said at a news conference in New York. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella said two indictments were announced Thursday, both involving fraud. The first focused on sports betting and the second on illegal gambling related to “rigged poker games”.
“These defendants, including former professional athletes, used high-tech cheating technology to steal millions of dollars from victims in underground poker games that were secretly rigged,” Nocella said. “Gaming in the New York area was supported by the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families of La Cosa Nostra.”
The games were reportedly held in the Hamptons, Las Vegas, Miami and Manhattan. Nocella alleged that Billups and Jones were used as “face cards” to lure targeted victims, known as “fish,” looking to play alongside former professional athletes.
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“What the victims, the fish, didn’t know was that everyone else in the poker game, from the dealer to the players to the tricks, was involved in the scam.”
Nocella said the crime families were involved because they had “pre-existing control over illegal, non-rigged poker games” in New York. Of the 34 defendants, 13 are alleged members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families, including “high-ranking capos and soldiers of these families.”
La Cosa Nostra
According to the FBI, the La Cosa Nostra (LCN) crime families originate from the Sicilian mafia and constitute a New York-based network made up of five “families”: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese. Its prevalence in the United States dates back to the 1920s.
Other cities with active ties to the LCN include Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago, as well as the New England region.
Among the alleged crimes these organizations are involved in, several notable cases involve major sports scandals. In the United States, there is a long history of crimes related to sports betting and match-fixing, directly and indirectly linked to organized crime.
Boxing of the 1950s-1960s
American gangster and boxing manager Frank Carbo leaves the Beach Street police station in New York after receiving a 10-count indictment for irregularities in his professional boxing business on August 7, 1959. (Neal Boenzi/New York Times Co./Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Frank “Frankie” Carbo, a known Lucchese soldier, and his longtime partner Frank “Blinky” Palermo, were convicted in 1961 of extortion and conspiracy after using threats and intimidation to control world welterweight champion Don Jordan. The affair exposed the mob control of the sport at the time, highlighted by the influence of Carbo and Palermo over fighters and promotions. The convictions were later upheld, and the case exposed deep corruption that decades later helped spur reform movements that resulted in the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 and the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000.
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1951 college basketball point-splitting scandal
Two of the city’s college basketball stars, Al Roth (foreground) and Ed Warner (with hat), are escorted by detectives into the Elizabeth Street Station House for booking on corruption charges. Police said the two Beaver stars, along with teammate Ed Roman and three other men, confessed to their roles in a new basketball trick scandal, involving the “throwing” of several games in town this season. (Bettmann Archives/Getty Images)
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York uncovered a massive point-scoring scheme involving players at several major programs, including City College of New York (CCNY) and Long Island University (LIU), who accepted bribes linked to organized crime gaming syndicates in New York. The investigation resulted in more than 30 indictments and led to prison sentences for key figures and lifetime bans from the NBA for the players involved. No specific crime family has ever been officially charged in the case, but one of the main mobsters, Salvatore T. Sollazzo, is said to have known ties to New York’s underground gambling ring.
Boston College men’s basketball point-splitting scandal
Rick Kuhn (#35) during the 1978-79 Boston College men’s basketball season. (Joe Dennehy/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
One of the clearest examples of La Cosa Nostra’s influence in sports is the 1978-79 scandal involving Boston College and two associates of the Lucchese crime family. The two associates, Henry Hill and James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, paid thousands of dollars to gamblers to manipulate game scores to obtain betting profits during that season with the help of Pittsburgh bookmaker Paul Mazzei. The FBI investigation and federal prosecution led to several convictions, including that of Boston College player Rick Kuhn, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Burke was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but Hill avoided direct prosecution for the scandal in exchange for cooperating with authorities.
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Several other illegal sports betting and gambling operations linked to crime families in New York have been prosecuted over the years. This year, five members and associates of the Lucchese crime family pleaded guilty to running an illegal online gambling operation that collected approximately $1 million a year over several years of operation. In 2024, 17 people linked to the Gambino family were indicted in connection with a sports gambling operation that processed more than $22 million in illegal bets, the New York State Attorney General’s Office said at the time.
