More than 30 people have been charged in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations involving the NBA, the nation’s top basketball league, and organized crime, U.S. authorities said Thursday. Among those arrested are a member of the league’s Hall of Fame and head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and a 31-year-old player who plays for the Miami Heat.<\/p>\n
According to FBI Director, the schemes involved tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits through wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, and gambling. He said one of the investigations involves insider sports betting and the second involves the rigging of poker games across the United States. \u201cThe fraud is staggering,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are talking about fraud, thefts, and robberies in the double-digit million range as part of an investigation lasting several years.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the NBA insiders who passed nonpublic information about their performance to criminal associates, who then used other bettors to use the information given to them to make profits based on the tips they received. In one case that occurred in March 2023, the insider told his contacts that he was leaving a game early supposedly due to an injury, which led them to place bets that the player would not reach his expected stats, according to officials.<\/p>\n
The second investigation involves the rigging of poker games, with players promised to play against celebrities. Sophisticated technology was used, including fraudulent card shuffling machines and x-ray tables. According to U.S. Attorney, several defendants have been charged in both cases, including a former player and assistant coach. Several New York-based crime families were involved.<\/p>\n
While the NBA and the teams did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the defendant’s attorney accused authorities of "seizing the world of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on evidence," adding that his client had been cleared by the NBA. \u201cThese prosecutors have revived this case,\u201d the attorney said. The scam was supported by the La Cosa Nostra crime families, and the investigation has been ongoing for several years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to the Gambling Investigation More than 30 people have been charged in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations involving the NBA, the nation’s top basketball league, and organized crime, U.S. authorities said Thursday. Among those arrested are a member of the league’s Hall of Fame and head coach of the Portland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[16517,237,16535,5568,16539,6036,6907,2645,10622,10566,595,16534,16540,16537,16538,16533,16532,4321,2715,590,14658,4684,16531,6032,16536,7810,4807],"class_list":{"0":"post-26130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-american-mafia","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-business-insider","11":"tag-case-law","12":"tag-crime-family","13":"tag-criminal-procedure","14":"tag-electoral-fraud","15":"tag-evidence","16":"tag-extortion","17":"tag-federal-bureau-of-investigation","18":"tag-fraud","19":"tag-gambling","20":"tag-gaming-law","21":"tag-insider-trading","22":"tag-lawyer","23":"tag-mail-and-wire-fraud","24":"tag-miami-heat","25":"tag-money-laundering","26":"tag-national-basketball-association","27":"tag-organized-crime","28":"tag-poker","29":"tag-police","30":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","31":"tag-prosecutor","32":"tag-sports-betting","33":"tag-suspect","34":"tag-x-ray"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26132,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26130\/revisions\/26132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}