FLASH
Shkruar nga Roberto Saviano
The historic mafia families are still there. The arrests of Rozier and Billups and the trafficking of cryptocurrency...
In 1931, after bitter feuds, five mafia families—the Bonanno, Colombo, Genovese, Lucchese, and Gambino—shared criminal power in New York.
Each with its own territory, often in conflict, sometimes allied with each other. Even today, every action, including clashes, is governed by rules dating back to the 1930s, imposed by Salvatore Maranzano and especially Lucky Luciano.
In 2025, 94 years later, and after countless changes, arrests, trials, judicial collaborations and a law designed to destroy them (the RICO law), the five families are still there. Almost no member bears the surname of the founders anymore, but in recent years their power seems to have been renewed. This time, 4 of the 5 families, the Colombos have been excluded from the investigation, have managed, according to the FBI, to establish a connection with the NBA.
It all started with Terry Rozier, the 30-year-old Miami Heat point guard with an estimated net worth of $45 million, including NBA contracts, endorsements and real estate investments. He was the starting point of a federal investigation into the biggest betting scandal to ever rock the league. It all began with a seemingly insignificant game, played in March 2023, when Rozier was still wearing a Charlotte Hornets jersey. That night, he entered the court against the New Orleans Pelicans, missed his first two shots, walked with a strange gait and limped to the bench a few minutes later. “Ankle injury,” reporters announced.
A bad day, maybe a sprained ankle, nothing more. No one, not the fans, not the opponents, not the coaches, suspected that that brief appearance was actually the beginning of a federal investigation that, two years later, would shake up half the league.
Because, FBI investigators claim, Rozier had previously informed De'Niro Laster, a childhood friend, that he would enter the field, not score, and immediately get injured. A random message sent on Signal, but enough to transform an injury into an event worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Laster, a former college football player, gathered the information and passed it on to a small group of bettors: everyone bet on "under," meaning a player would score fewer points than expected. Three hours later, Rozier's injury confirmed the prediction. The bets, placed on legal platforms, brought in over $200,000.
From that moment on, the FBI began tracking the flow of money, encrypted messages, cryptocurrencies, and offshore accounts. But how does someone go from a small sports lie, a sore ankle, to the New York mafia families? The FBI says it discovered it by following the money. The winnings from inside bets don't stay in the players' accounts, but flow into a network of shell companies and crypto wallets that lead back to Manhattan, New Jersey, and Atlantic City, areas long controlled by the Gambino, Bonanno, Genovese, and Lucchese families.
According to prosecutors, the system worked like this: certain NBA insiders: coaches, players or staff members gave privileged micro-information (playing time, injuries, lineup changes) to intermediaries, who passed it on to clandestine bookmakers. Cosa Nostra thus created an illegal betting market. Bets were not placed in physical gambling halls, but on unregulated platforms based in jurisdictions such as Panama, Curacao or Costa Rica: no restrictions, few checks and money transfers that were difficult to trace.
The money laundering mechanism was simple and clever. Initially, money derived from illegal activities (rigged poker, usury loans, illegal gambling) was deposited into accounts on supposedly authorized platforms, where the activity appeared normal.
The player or broker would then place obvious bets and, when they withdrew their winnings, even small ones, they would receive formally "clean" money, replacing funds of dubious origin.
It is a form of "facade cleaning": money moves from the criminal circuit to a regulated industry.
But why did Terry Rozier, a gambler who makes $26 million a year, end up spreading useful information about gambling? The investigation suggests the simplest and most obvious hypothesis: gambling addiction. According to the federal investigation by the Southern District of New York, Rozier did not manage the poker tables, but instead placed bets through illegal channels controlled by brokers linked to the Gambino and Genovese families. The documents revealed key elements that could explain Rozier's involvement, as he apparently had large gambling debts, covered by usurious loans from people close to the Gambino family. Rozier allegedly tried to pay off part of the debt by providing information about injuries and gambling decisions: a federal crime if proven, because it constitutes insider betting.
But Cosa Nostra didn't just use players for information; it also used them as bait at the poker tables, or as marketing leverage to attract wealthy participants.
Former champions, coaches and familiar faces sat around, a presence that lent credibility to the game and made it easier to convince new victims to join in. However, when the tables were rigged, that allure turned into a trap: card-reading technology, rigged with mixed players and organized teams of cheaters ensured that they always emerged victorious.
But why did the Mafia get into sports betting and what did it intend to gain from these operations? Simple: money and legitimacy. Money to launder and a public cover built through well-known names. The faces used were very attractive: Chauncey Billups, the former Detroit Pistons star, now a coach, and Damon Jones, a former player known for his shooting skills. Being a "famous face" in the elite poker clubs means prestige and center stage. Moreover, the Mafia knows how to seduce you, how to make you feel like a king, to the point of paying you generously to "be yourself."
Moreover, these are invisible contracts: you don't have to commit a crime, just show up, and many accept them precisely because they don't perceive the risk; they only see a golden celebration. Professional athletes are used to controlling their bodies, their time, and their performance, but fame and pressure often push them into contexts where they lose control. Poker then becomes a way to reclaim risk, a paradox that turns them into pawns in a mafia-style image economy.
Billups and other face cards did not deal directly with mafia bosses, but with promoters, event organizers, and managers, as a bridge that masked their criminal roots. This psychological distance allows them to say to themselves: "I'm not working for the mafia, I'm just attending a private event."
And so, without realizing it, they become part of a criminal network that uses fame as a commodity. / Adapted from Corriere /
Lini një Përgjigje