As the Oct. 23 arrests and indictments allegedly show in stunning detail, the old-school Italian mafia — La Cosa Nostra with its loyalty oaths, nicknames and lucrative gambling rackets — haven't gone away.
In announcing one of the biggest purported sports-betting and illegal gambling scandals in decades, FBI Director Kash Patel said Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones all were arrested as part of two sprawling and long-running investigations into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed in some cases by four of the major New York Mafia families.
Patel − and the charging documents − detailed how mafia members allegedly used high-tech tools, along with their old-fashioned racketeering schemes, to help orchestrate major aspects of the criminal operation.
"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," Patel said at a news conference.