Greater than 30 folks, together with NBA head coach Chauncey Billups and participant Terry Rozier, have been arrested as a part of federal investigations into playing and “sports activities rigging” operations linked to a number of main crime households, regulation enforcement leaders stated Thursday.
“We’re right here in New York to announce a historic arrest throughout a large, sweeping legal enterprise that envelops each the NBA and La Cosa Nostra,” FBI Director Kash Patel stated at a information convention in Brooklyn, New York.
Billups, head coach of the Portland Path Blazers, Rozier of the Miami Warmth, and former NBA participant Damon Jones have been “taken into custody immediately,” Patel stated.
The NBA has cooperated with the regulation enforcement investigations, U.S. Lawyer for the Jap District of New York Joseph Nocella stated. The basketball affiliation didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
The arrests stem from two main fraud-related circumstances: one involving sports activities betting, and the opposite linked to “rigged poker video games,” Nocella stated.
FBI Director Kash Patel (R) leads information convention to announce arrests tied to unlawful sports activities betting and poker recreation schemes, in New York Metropolis on October 23, 2025.
Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty Photographs
The latter indictment encompasses 31 defendants, together with Billups, who allegedly “participated in a nationwide scheme” to rig the video games utilizing “high-tech dishonest know-how to steal hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from victims in underground poker video games that have been secretly mounted,” Nocella stated.
The video games that passed off within the New York space have been backed by the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime households, he stated.
The opposite indictment facilities on an insider sports-betting conspiracy that Nocella described as “probably the most brazen sports activities corruption schemes since on-line sports activities betting grew to become broadly legalized in the USA.”
That case entails six defendants, together with Rozier. Jones is charged in each circumstances.
Former Toronto Raptors participant Jontay Porter was beforehand charged within the sports activities playing scheme, Nocella stated. Porter pleaded responsible in July 2024 to wire fraud conspiracy.
Head coach Chauncey Billups of the Portland Path Blazers reacts through the first quarter of the preseason recreation towards the Golden State Warriors on the Moda Middle on October 14, 2025 in Portland, Oregon.
Alika Jenner | Getty Photographs Sport | Getty Photographs
“This alleged unlawful playing operation hustled unwitting victims out of tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, and created a monetary pipeline for La Cosa Nostra to assist fund and facilitate their organized legal exercise,” stated FBI New York Assistant Director in Cost Christopher Raia.
Billups, a former participant for the Detroit Pistons who spent 17 years within the NBA, was arrested in Portland, Oregon. A five-time All-Star, Billups was inducted into the Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2024.
Rozier was arrested in Orlando, Florida.
Rozier, a 10-year NBA veteran, reportedly had been eyed for months over suspicious sports activities betting exercise associated to his play.
Terry Rozier #2 of the Miami Warmth dribbles the ball through the second half in a preseason recreation towards the Memphis Grizzlies at Kaseya Middle on October 17, 2025 in Miami, Florida.
Tomas Diniz Santos | Getty Photographs Sport | Getty Photographs
Billups was named NBA Finals Most Beneficial Participant in 2004 when the Pistons defeated the Los Angeles Lakers within the league’s finals.
Jones, 49, performed for 10 groups, together with three seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, over a decade-plus NBA profession.
— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed reporting.
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