Ex-basketballers indicted for rigging games following conspiracy probe

A new federal indictment against a group including more than two dozen former college and professional basketball players alleges a years-long, multinational game-rigging conspiracy, according to new court documents unsealed Thursday.

The indictments are connected to alleged coordination with players in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), and include alleged bribery in sports, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aiding and abetting, according to a Thursday NBC report. Prosecutors allege the group engaged in a “point-shaving” scheme, in which players would manipulate the final margin of a game and cash in on sports bets with their insider information.

“We allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of NCAA players, alumni and professional bettors who fixed gains across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain,” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf told reporters on Thursday, according to NBC.

Metcalf said that 26 people total “perpetrated a transnational criminal scheme to fix NCAA Division I men’s basketball games as well as professional Chinese Basketball Association games.”

The indictment, however, only named 20 defendants, according to NBC, including 16 former college basketball players. Two individuals dubbed “high-stakes sports gamblers,” who previously were charged with rigging bets on NBA games in October, were also implicated in the new indictment, Reuters reported Thursday.

Prosecutors allege the conspiracy started in 2022, when the defendants first bribed CBA players to manipulate games, NBC reported. In 2023, the defendants then targeted NCAA basketball games in the U.S. and bribed players to manipulate score spreads in payments “ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game,” according to the indictment.

The increasing popularity of sports betting in the U.S. has seen a number of similar cases perpetrated in the past years as regulators scramble to crack down on conspiratorial groups.

All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!