MASSIVE Arrests in NBA Illegal Gambling Scheme involving Current/Former Players/Coaches and Several Mafia Crime Families - Integrity of League in Doubt

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Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested by the FBI on Thursday as part of two separate illegal gambling-related cases, the FBI confirmed.

Billups, Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were among over 30 individuals arrested in connection with the FBI's probe. Four other individuals, Eric Earnest, Marves Fairley, Shane Hennen and Deniro Laster were named in the Department of Justice's indictment.

Billups and Rozier — the two individuals currently active in the NBA — were placed on immediate leave by the league Thursday.

The investigation took years and spanned 11 states, FBI director Kash Patel said Thursday.

Billups and Jones were charged after allegedly being involved with an illegal poker operation tied to the mafia.

The individuals allegedly involved in running the illegal poker games — some of which include members of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families — are accused of rigging contests in their favor. Individuals reportedly used secret cameras, contacts that could read marked cards and X-ray tables, among other methods, to cheat other players out of millions.

Billups' presence at those games was meant to legitimize them and make "victims believe that they were sitting at a fair table," New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch said Thursday. Billups was reportedly aware of the scam, per U.S. Attorney Joe Nocella.

Billups, 49, spent 17 seasons in the NBA as a player. The No. 3 overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, Billups spent eight of those seasons with the Detroit Pistons, where he helped lead the team to a championship in 2004. He was a five-time All-Star, made the All-NBA team three times and was a member of the NBA All-Defensive team twice. Billups was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024.

Following the end of his playing career, Billups went into coaching. He was hired by the Trail Blazers ahead of the 2021-22 NBA season and has compiled a 177-212 record in five seasons with the team.

One of those defeats came Wednesday night, as Billups led the Trail Blazers to a 118-114 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the team's 2025-26 season opener.

Jones was also reportedly involved in the illegal poker game scheme. Jones, an 11-year NBA veteran, played for 10 teams during his career. After retiring in 2012, Jones spent time as an assistant coach with the Cavaliers.

Rozier, 31, had been under investigation for his actions during a 2022-23 NBA game, when he was still a member of the Charlotte Hornets. Prior to a game against the New Orleans Pelicans that season, a bettor placed nearly $14,000 on unders involving Rozier's statistics. Rozier left the game after just nine minutes due to a foot injury, causing his under bets to win, per documents acquired by ESPN.

The investigation into Rozier reportedly focused on whether he "manipulated his performance as part of an illegal sports betting scheme," the Wall Street Journal wrote in January.

Despite the investigation, Rozier, an 11-year NBA veteran, was preparing to play for the Heat during the 2025-26 NBA season. The guard battled a hamstring injury ahead of the team's season opener Wednesday, but was reportedly available to play in the contest.

He did not make an appearance in the team's 125-121 loss to the Orlando Magic.

In September, the Hornets canceled a sports betting theme night promotion that was supposed to take place when Rozier and the Heat came to town in March.

Rozier's lawyer, Jim Trusty, released a statement to CNN saying his client "looks forward to winning this fight."

Trusty also criticized the way the FBI handled Thursday's arrest.

“It is unfortunate that instead of allowing [Rozier] to self surrender they opted for a photo op. They wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case. They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing,” Trusty’s statement continued.

The NBPA issued a statement that echoed that sentiment. The organization stressed that "the integrity of the game is paramount," but also called out the FBI for using Rozier and Billups' names as a way to draw more attention to the arrests.

“The integrity of the game is paramount to NBA players, but so is the presumption of innocence, and both are hindered when player popularity is misused to gain attention. We will ensure our members are protected and afforded their due process rights through this process."

In addition to reportedly being involved in the illegal poker games, Jones was also accused of providing inside information about NBA games to co-defendants who used that information to place sports bets, per ABC News.

The probe into Rozier was the same one one that resulted in Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter being banned from the NBA for life, prosecutors said Thursday. Porter was investigated after unusual betting activity came in on his unders for two games. Porter left one of those contests with an injury and another with an illness, causing a number of those unders to hit.

An NBA investigation determined Porter leaked "confidential information to sports bettors," limited his playing time in certain games for betting purposes and bet on NBA games, leading to his lifetime ban.

Former Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley, who was under investigation due to his alleged involvement in a federal gambling probe, was not part of the arrests. While the investigation into Beasley was not closed, the NBA investigation into Beasley allegedly "didn't find anything," per journalist Pablo Torre. Beasley reportedly voluntarily handed over his phone to NBA investigators, per Torre.

The FBI and Patel held a press conference Thursday to confirm those arrests and provide more details on the allegations surrounding Billups, Jones and Rozier.

Following that press conference, the NBA announced Billups and Rozier would be placed on immediate leave. The NBA said it would cooperate with investigators and takes the allegations seriously. Assistant coach Tiago Splitter was named acting head coach for the Blazers in place of Billups, per Shams Charania.

Thank you to Chris Cwik.

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MS-13 Cell Operating in Nashville Dismantled by the US DEA #MS13 #DEA

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration successfully dismantled an MS-13 cell operating within Nashville, Tennessee.

After a 9-month investigation, a series of court-authorized search warrants were conducted this morning throughout the metropolitan Nashville area, resulting in the arrests of at least 17 members and associates of MS-13 across three states, including Tennessee, California, and Oklahoma. In addition, investigators also seized bulk quantities of marijuana, counterfeit pills, cocaine, THC vapes, liquid psilocybin, and multiple firearms, including assault rifles.

“These arrests represent a critical milestone in DEA’s mission to dismantle drug trafficking organizations operating in the United States and around the globe – prioritizing those designated by President Trump as Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole. “MS-13 has left a trail of violence and devastation across communities nationwide. The residents of Nashville are safer today now that these dangerous individuals will be held accountable for their destructive actions. Today’s enforcement actions are not the last. More will follow, and we will not stop until MS-13 is no longer able to inflict harm on our communities.”

“The actions taken today against MS-13 are the first of what will be many strikes against those who prey on the weak in our society,” said Louisville Field Division Special Agent in Charge Jim Scott. “The DEA and our law enforcement partners will not allow foreign terrorist organizations to operate in our communities. We will hunt you down and bring you to justice.”

MS-13 is a violent international criminal gang that emerged in Los Angeles during the 1980s. Over the years, it has expanded its influence, establishing strongholds in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, while infiltrating communities across all fifty U.S. states. Fueled by its deep involvement in the illegal drug trade, MS-13 is notorious for its ruthless tactics, including extortion, human trafficking, assault, and murder, to maintain control over its territory. With thousands of members operating within the United States, MS-13 remains a public safety and national security threat.

Today’s operation was made possible through the collaboration of DEA’s Louisville Field Division with Army Criminal Investigation Division; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Metropolitan Nashville Police Department; Tennessee Highway Patrol; local Tennessee drug task forces 23rd Judicial Drug Task Force and 19th Judicial Drug Task Force; and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

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Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland #IrishMafia #TheTroubles #IRA

Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles.

Say Nothing
A True Story
of Murder and Memory
in Northern Ireland

Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind, Brendan Hughes, known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.

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Rahul Shah Convicted for Role in Bank Fraud and Covid-19 Pay Check Protection Program (PPP) Fraud Schemes #Corruption

A federal jury convicted an Illinois businessman for his role in schemes to fraudulently obtain over $55 million in commercial loans and lines of credit and for submitting fraudulent applications to obtain COVID-19 relief money guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Rahul Shah, 56, of Evanston, the owner and operator of several information technology companies in the Chicago area, fraudulently obtained funds from loans and lines of credit for which he was not eligible from federally insured financial institutions and later defaulted on at least one such line of credit and one such loan. Shah submitted to federally insured financial institutions falsified bank statements that fraudulently inflated deposits, falsified balance sheets that overstated revenues, and fabricated audited financial statements with forged signatures. Shah also engaged in monetary transactions with proceeds from the bank fraud.

Shah also submitted to a federally insured bank an application for a $441,138 loan guaranteed by the SBA that significantly overstated the payroll expenses of a company he controlled. In support of the loan application, he submitted to the lender several fraudulent IRS documents, which falsely represented that the company made payments to multiple individuals who had not received such payments. He also used stolen identities to carry out the fraud, using the names and taxpayer identification numbers of individuals that he knew had not received payments from the company in the PPP loan applications.

In addition, Shah signed and caused to be submitted to the lender what purported to be IRS Forms 941 representing his company’s quarterly payroll expenses for 2019. A comparison between the documents submitted to the lender and the company’s IRS and state tax filings revealed that Shah’s company reported significantly lower payroll expenses to the tax authorities.

Shah was convicted of seven counts of bank fraud, five counts of making false statements to a financial institution, two counts of money laundering, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 13. Shah faces up to 30 years in prison on each count of bank fraud and false statements to a financial institution, up to 10 years in prison on each count of money laundering, and up to two years in prison for each aggravated identity theft count. A federal district court judge will determine the sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

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Sweeping ICE Operation Shows How Trump's Focus on Illegal Immigration is Reshaping Law Enforcement #OperationAtLarge

In mid-May, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, frustrated over what he saw as numbers of arrests and deportations of unauthorized immigrants that were too low, berated and threatened to fire senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials if they did not begin detaining 3,000 migrants a day, according to two sources who spoke to attendees.

Miller also threatened to fire leaders of field offices posting the bottom 10% of arrest numbers monthly, the two sources said.

Weeks later, ICE is launching the Trump administration’s largest immigration crackdown.

“Operation At Large,” a nationwide, ICE-led plan already underway to ramp up arrests of unauthorized immigrants, includes more than 5,000 personnel from across federal law enforcement agencies and up to 21,000 National Guard troops, according to an operation plan described to NBC News by three sources with knowledge of the personnel allocations who detailed the previously unreported plans.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Polo.  

Drawing those numbers from other law enforcement agencies, though, has been a source of tension among some officials, who feel they have been taken off other core national security missions, according to three additional law enforcement and military officials. Like others interviewed for this article, they requested anonymity in order to share sensitive information.

It is the latest example of how President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations is reshaping federal law enforcement as officials shift resources toward immigration-related cases — including nonviolent administrative offenses — leaving less time and attention for other types of criminal investigations.

The plan calls for using 3,000 ICE agents, including 1,800 from Homeland Security Investigations, which generally investigates transnational crimes and is not typically involved in arresting noncriminal immigrants; 2,000 Justice Department employees from the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration; and 500 employees from Customs and Border Protection. It also includes 250 IRS agents, some of whom may be used to provide information on the whereabouts of immigrants using tax information, while others would have the authority to make arrests, according to the operation plan.

The Department of Homeland Security has also requested the use of 21,000 National Guard members to provide support in ICE operations, according to two additional sources familiar with the request, though that number has yet to be approved by the Defense Department or by governors who would be deploying their state’s units, multiple sources cautioned.Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, responding to the Miller meeting, said, “Keeping President Trump’s promise to deport illegal aliens is something the Administration takes seriously. We are committed to aggressively and efficiently removing illegal aliens from the United States, and ensuring our law enforcement officers have the resources necessary to do so. The safety of the American people depends upon it.”

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “Under Secretary Noem, we are delivering on President Trump’s and the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe.”

More than a dozen current and former law enforcement sources described other changes inside federal law enforcement driven by the Trump administration’s focus on immigration.

At the FBI, where it was once unusual for special agents to go on immigration-related law enforcement operations, according to multiple current and former law enforcement officials, field offices around the country have been ordered to assign significantly more agents to assist with ICE operations to arrest people on administrative immigration warrants.

Misdemeanor cases for border crossings are regularly appearing in federal court, a rarity in recent years. Justice Department teams focused on other issues are being disbanded, with members being dispersed to teams focused on immigration and other administration priorities. And prosecutors say cases without immigration components have stalled or are moving more slowly, according to documents seen by NBC News and conversations with six current and former prosecutors and a senior FBI official, who described how immigration is now a central part of discussions around whether to pursue cases.

“Immigration status is now question No. 1 in terms of charging decisions,” an assistant U.S. attorney said. “Is this person a documented immigrant? Is this person an undocumented immigrant? Is this person a citizen? Are they somehow deportable? What is their immigration status? And the answer to that question is now largely driving our charging decisions.”

At least one U.S. attorney’s office abandoned a potential federal prosecution of someone who prosecutors felt was dangerous because the case against the person lacked an immigration component, an email obtained by NBC News showed. The office instead left the case to state prosecutors.

Reorganizing federal law enforcement to prioritize immigration could have sweeping long-term effects on the U.S. justice system. The Trump administration set early quotas for immigration arrests and has marshaled resources to go far beyond early statements about focusing only on deporting violent criminals, as well as invoking laws that have not previously been used for immigration enforcement, like the Alien Enemies Act. Prioritizing immigration also means shifting finite resources in ways that de-prioritize other cases. Last month, FBI field offices around the country shifted agents from other beats to immigration enforcement, according to current and former FBI officials and memos obtained by NBC News. A senior FBI official wrote in a memo to bureau managers that the Justice Department “expects a significant increase in the number of agents participating in immigration enforcement operations.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that “immigration security is national security,” pointing to the Egyptian national accused of launching an antisemitic attack in Colorado on Sunday. The man entered the United States on a valid visa before he filed for asylum, after which the visa expired. Jackson argued the administration’s moves to prioritize immigration enforcement will not carry an opportunity cost.

“Enforcing our immigration laws and removing illegal aliens is one big way President Trump is ‘Making America Safe Again.’ But the president can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Jackson continued. “We’re holding all criminals accountable, whether they’re illegal aliens or American citizens. That’s why nationwide murder rates have plummeted, fugitives from the FBI’s most wanted list have been captured, and police officers are empowered to do their jobs, unlike under the Biden Administration’s soft-on-crime regime.”

(Falling murder rates predate the second Trump administration, with rates rising during and immediately after the Covid pandemic before dropping in each of 2022, 2023 and the first half of 2024, according to FBI data.)

Still, federal law enforcement officials who spoke to NBC News said the increased focus on cases with an immigration angle is pulling resources from other law enforcement priorities. “There is such a priority on making immigration arrests that it takes longer to get answers on anything else. Something that used to be resolved in a matter of days now takes weeks,” a law enforcement official said.

The shift in resources affects not only the type of cases taken but also the type of personnel involved in immigration raids. The FBI is almost always the agency leading the charge in joint investigations, but it has traditionally avoided getting involved in enforcement operations that involve only immigration enforcement, current and former officials confirmed.

Those operations, which are led by ICE, involve noncriminal administrative removal warrants for immigration offenses, not the type of criminal warrants the FBI typically serves, three officials said.

Since Trump took office, the FBI has routinely joined ICE operations. Some FBI employees have received guidance to minimize the actions they take during immigration-related raids and, particularly, to avoid entering into homes when they join ICE operations, four current and former law enforcement officials said.

The Trump administration is also deliberating over creating a task force led by a senior leader from the Department of Homeland Security and a senior leader from the Justice Department, according to an undated draft implementation guide reviewed by NBC News and a person familiar with the deliberations. It is unclear whether that version is the most current draft under consideration.

The Homeland Security Task Force would work in the FBI and ICE field offices across the country to “identify and target for prosecution transnational criminal organizations engaged in diverse criminal schemes,” the draft said. It continues: “In addition to the prosecution of the above criminal violations, the mission of the HSTF is further to facilitate the removal of criminal aliens from the United States.”

The draft plan raises questions about which additional federal resources could be pulled in solely to focus on immigration. It says the new task force would work with the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon to “assist with targeting and investigations.”

Meanwhile, it is unclear whether or when the shifting resources and reorganization will result in the Trump administration’s hitting its desired deportation numbers, like the 3,000-person daily quota Miller demanded in the mid-May meeting. ICE no longer posts comprehensive daily arrest statistics, but on social media, it has posted details of at least 350 arrests since May 26.

Thanks to Julia Ainsley

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Polo.

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