Thirty-four people, including a current NBA coach and player, have been arrested and charged for allegedly participating in two wide-ranging, illegal schemes.

One scheme featured rigging illegal poker games through the use of various technology, such as an X-ray table, authorities said. The other allegedly involved utilizing private information to place fake bets.

FBI Director Kash Patel told a press conference on Oct. 23 that the scale of the fraud “is mind-boggling.”

“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,” he said.

Here’s what to know.

Shuffling Machines, X-Ray Table

A broad gambling operation utilized an X-ray table and other technology in poker games to cheat people, authorities said.

“The scheme targeted victims known as ‘fish,’ who were often lured to participate in these rigged games by the chance to play alongside former professional athletes who were known as ‘face cards,’” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella told the briefing.

Chauncey Billups, 49, coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and former NBA player Damon Jones, 49, were among the so-called face cards, Nocella said.

“What the victims, the ‘fish,’ didn’t know is that everybody else at the poker game—from the dealer to the players, including the face cards—were in on the scam,” he said. “Once the game was underway, the defendants fleeced the victims out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game.”

The defendants utilized manipulated shuffling machines that would deal cards in a particular order, according to charging documents.

Information from the rigged machines would be sent to a person offsite, who would communicate to one of the players, referred to as the “quarterback” or “driver.” That player would touch certain chips or employ another way to signal to other co-conspirators playing in the game.

The scheme also utilized an X-ray table that could “read cards face down on the table”, a poker chip tray with hidden cameras that could look at cards, and special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said.

A number of the games took place in the New York City area, including at buildings on Lexington Avenue and at Washington Place in the borough of Manhattan.

The Genovese, Gambino, Luchese, and Bonanno crime families had control over non-rigged poker games around New York City and became involved in the rigged games, according to officials.

“Bringing four of the five families together in a single indictment is extraordinarily rare,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “It reflects how deep and how far this investigation reached, and the skill and the persistence it took to get here. That work uncovered a deliberate, technologically sophisticated operation designed to carry out their crimes.”

The operation yielded at least $7 million, the FBI said.

The defendants laundered the money they made through cash exchanges and other methods, according to charging documents. Defendants face decades in prison on counts including wire fraud conspiracy, operating an illegal gambling business, and money laundering conspiracy.

Billups and Jones were among the 31 people charged in the alleged enterprise.

“We are aware of the allegations involving head coach Chauncey Billups, and the Trail Blazers are fully cooperating with the investigation,” the Trail Blazers said in a statement to news outlets.

Billups and his attorney declined to comment to reporters on Thursday. Jones did not have an attorney listed on the court docket.

Bettors Used Non-Public Information for Windfalls: Officials

Terry Rozier, who plays for the Miami Heat, told his friend Deniro Laster, 30, that he was going to leave a game on March 23, 2023, early, according to charging documents. Laster and others placed wagers predicting Rozier would underperform his usual production. Rozier left the game after nine minutes. The team said he had a sore right foot.

Laster collected tens of thousands of dollars in profits and drove to Rozier’s house, where they counted the profits together, officials said.

That was just one of multiple instances when bettors placed fraudulent bets based on private information, according to authorities.

For a game the next day, an NBA coach passed on insider information to another man, Eric Earnest, 53, that several of the Trail Blazers players would sit out, according to charging documents. Associates contacted by Earnest wagered more than $100,000 against the Blazers, and ended up with major winnings.

Rozier, Laster, and Earnest were among six people arrested and charged in the betting operation.

Marves Fairley, 33, learned from an inside connection to an Orlando Magic player that top Magic players would not play in an April 6, 2023, game, according to charging documents. Fairley placed an $11,000 bet that the Magic’s opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers, would outperform the point spread, a betting point. The Cavs won by 24 points, and Fairley pocketed the money, authorities said.

Jones, 49, a former NBA player, allegedly sold information not available to the public, including medical details on players before public release, to co-conspirators, who placed wagers based on the information, prosecutors said. For Feb. 9, 2023, and Jan. 15, 2024, Los Angeles Lakers games, Jones provided such information to enable co-conspirators to bet on the games, according to charging documents. Jones was described as an unofficial Lakers coach during the 2022–2023 season.

“The defendants relied on a network of straw betters to place the maximum amount of bets to increase their potential profits. Most of these bets succeeded, and the intended losses were in the millions of dollars,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. told the briefing on Thursday. “The defendants then laundered their illegal winnings in various ways.”

Some co-conspirators were not identified or charged, including another former NBA player and a relative of Rozier.

Jones, Earnest, and Shane Hennen, 31, participated in both operations, officials said.

The defendants either did not respond to requests for comment sent to their lawyers or had not yet retained legal representation.

“At this time, we have no indication that any current players were involved and we have not been contacted by the authorities,” Joel Glass, a spokesman for the Magic, told The Epoch Times in an email. “All members of the Magic organization complete mandatory NBA gambling education and compliance training each season. Integrity and adherence to league rules are of the utmost importance.”

The Hornets, Heat, and Lakers did not respond to inquiries by publication time.

The defendants face up to 40 years in prison if convicted of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.

The charges cover Jontay Porter, who, as an NBA player in 2024, told people he would exit two games early due to purported injuries. Fraudulent wagers placed by co-conspirators proved successful when he followed through. Porter and others previously pleaded guilty, and the NBA banned Porter for life.

Arrests Made, NBA Reacts

Rozier and others charged in the scheme were arrested this week.

Jim Trusty, an attorney representing the Heat player, told The Epoch Times in an email that prosecutors had told Rozier’s lawyers that he was a subject, not a target, of the investigation.

Authorities “appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing,” Trusty said. “Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case. Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight.”

Rozier was on the Heat bench during the team’s Oct. 22 game, the first of the season, but did not play. The move was listed as a coach’s decision.

Trusty told reporters that Rozier has been recovering from a hamstring injury.

Rozier appeared before a magistrate judge in Florida on Thursday. Billups was arraigned in federal court in Portland, Oregon. Both men were released.

Billups’s lawyer, Chris Heywood, told news outlets in a statement that his client is innocent.

“He will fight these allegations with the same tenacity that marked his 28-year career,” Heywood said. “We look forward to our day in court.”

Rozier and Billups were placed on immediate leave by their teams, the NBA said in an Oct. 23 statement.

Nocella said the NBA has cooperated with the investigation.

The NBA said that it was reviewing charging documents in the cases and cooperating with authorities.

“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the statement said.