Former Detroit Pistons guard and current Portland Trailblazers coach Chauncey Billups was arrested Thursday morning in connection with a federal probe focused on gambling, according to numerous reports.
Billups, 49, is charged for taking part an illegal poker operation tied to the Mafia.
Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was also arrested and charged on Thursday in a “separate but related illegal gambling case” related to using inside information to place unlawful wagers on the NBA.
Former Pistons guard (2001-2002) and Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones has been charged in both cases and was taken into custody.
In total, there are 31 people in custody in relation to the gambling investigation, per a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney for Eastern New York, out of the 34 total defendants listed in the two major cases.
“This is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years. The FBI led a coordinated takedown across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing,” FBI director Kash Patel said during a press conference Thursday morning. “Not only did we crack into the fraud that these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA, but we also entered and executed a system of justice against La Casa Nostra to include the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families.”
The case against Billups and 30 other defendants alleges his participation in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games involving the use of wireless cheating technology.
Billups was used as a “face card” for the operation — backed by Mafia — in order to lure victims to be fleeced for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in a game that was being rigged using tampered shuffling machines, poker chip tray analyzers and special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards, according to U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella.
Nocella alleges this operation began as early as 2019 with games running across the U.S. in The Hamptons, Las Vegas, Miami and Manhattan. Defendants who participated in the scheme are being charged with wire fraud conspiracy.
