26 Charged in NCAA, International Basketball Fixing Scheme

Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed indictments against 26 individuals involved in fixing college and international basketball games. 

The individuals named, which include former Bulls guard Antonio Blakeney, are accused of using a variety of tactics to rig games in the Chinese Basketball Association and NCAA Division I men’s basketball between September 2022 and February 2025. 

Blakeney, a 29-year-old former NBA player who participated in 76 NBA games for the Bulls between 2017 and 2019, worked with other known gamblers to set up a point-shaving scheme in the Chinese league during the 2022–23 season. After the success of this venture, the group set up a similar scheme in NCAA men’s college basketball involving more than 39 players on more than 17 different NCAA D-I men’s basketball teams, attempting to fix more than 29 games. The gamblers targeted players they believed wouldn’t have earned a significant amount of NIL money, and were therefore more susceptible to accepting bribes, according to the indictment.

The indictments were unsealed in Philadelphia, where a number of bets took place at Rivers Casino. The charges include bribery in sporting contests, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aiding and abetting. 

“The stakes here are far higher than anything on a bet slip. The criminal charges we have filed allege the criminal corruption of collegiate athletics through an international conspiracy of NCAA players, alumni, and professional bettors,” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said in a statement. “It’s also yet another blow to public confidence in the integrity of sport, which rests on the fundamental principles of fairness, honesty, and respect for the rules of competition. When criminal acts threaten to corrupt such a central institution of American life, the Department of Justice won’t hesitate to step in.”

One of the defendants, Shane Hennen, was also charged last year alongside Heat guard Terry Rozier for being part of an NBA gambling scheme that relied on them providing inside information. The new indictment describes Hennen and another defendant, Marves Fairley, as “high-stakes gamblers.”

“Today’s arrests and charges would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of our agents, analysts, and professional staff whose expertise, persistence, and commitment to justice over the past two years were the driving force behind this investigation,” said Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Philadelphia. “Let this be a clear warning to professional and collegiate athletes, and to anyone who seeks to manipulate them—there is nowhere to hide—the short-term gain will never be worth the long-term loss.”

Other defendants include trainers and a number of D-I basketball players at non–Power 4 schools such as Buffalo, DePaul, Fordham, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, La Salle, Nicholls State, Northwestern State, North Carolina A&T, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, St. Louis, and Tulane. 

Some players named in the indictment appeared in college basketball games as recently as Wednesday. Kennesaw State leading scorer Simeon Cottle had 21 points in the Owls’ win against Florida International on Wednesday. A representative for Kennesaw State told FOS that Cottle has been suspended indefinitely from all team activities.

Eastern Michigan’s Carlos Hart played 34 minutes for the team on Tuesday and scored nine points against Northern Illinois. Both players are accused of point shaving for their respective teams, while Cottle is also accused of recruiting his teammates to the scheme.

“Eastern was not aware of any allegations of this nature during the recruitment process,” an Eastern Michigan athletics spokesperson said in an email to FOS. “He has been immediately suspended from all team activities at EMU pending the outcome of the case, and the university has initiated its student conduct process as well. The conduct described in the indictment stands in direct opposition to the values and expectations of Eastern Michigan University Athletics.”

The accusations against Hart stem from his time at New Orleans, where he played the 2023–24 season. He transferred to Valdosta State for the 2024–25 season, before transferring again to Eastern Michigan for this current season. 

How the Scheme Took Shape

During the 2022–23 Chinese Basketball Association season, a group of “fixers,” including known gamblers Marves Fairley and Shane Hennen, recruited Blakeney who played on the Jiangsu Dragons, according to the indictment. Blakeney then recruited other players to participate in game manipulation. On several instances, Fairley, Hennen, and others bet six-figure sums, many of which were submitted at the BetRivers Sportsbook at Rivers Casino in Philadelphia. 

When one of the co-schemers got jumpy, Hennen texted them: “Nothing gu[a]rantee[d] in this world but death[,] taxes[,] and Chinese basketball.”

At the end of the season, Fairley put about $200,000 in cash from bribe payments and proceeds from the fixed CBA games into a Florida storage unit for Blakeney, the indictment said.

Fairley and Hennen, along with Blakeney and others, then set their sights on manipulating NCAA D-I men’s college basketball. The defendants listed as the “fixers” in this scheme were basketball trainer Jalen Smith, basketball coach and trainer Rodezuck Winkler, and former college basketball player Alberto Laureano along with Fairley, Hennen, and Blakeney. 

The 70-page indictment details dozens of instances of game manipulation, describing how the “fixers” offered players between $10,000 and $30,000 per game to fail to cover the spread for the first half of the game or the game in full. They didn’t target big-name players, however. Instead, “the fixers targeted for their scheme NCAA basketball players for whom the bribe payments would meaningfully supplement or exceed legitimate NIL opportunities,” the indictment read. “The fixers also generally targeted for their scheme players on teams that were underdogs in games and sought to have them fail to cover the spreads in those games.”

In a statement, NCAA president Charlie Baker said the news of a sports betting scandal in men’s college basketball “is not entirely new information to the NCAA.”

“Through helpful collaboration and with industry regulators, we have finished or have open investigations into almost all of the teams in today’s indictment,” Baker said. The NCAA has previously announced through multiple investigations that it has found at least 11 D-I men’s college basketball players from seven schools bet on their own performances, shared proprietary information with bettors, and/or manipulated their performances.

The NCAA is currently involved in lobbying to ban prop bets in multiple states, and the college sports organization in November voted against allowing college athletes to bet on professional sports.

“We have just been made aware of an indictment involving an alleged point-shaving scheme in a men’s basketball game that La Salle won against St. Bonaventure on February 21, 2024,” a La Salle spokesperson said in an email to Front Office Sports. “Neither the university, current student-athletes, or staff are subjects of the indictment. We will fully cooperate as needed with officials and investigations.”

A representative for Northwestern State said it is aware of the investigation and that the school “has and will continue to cooperate fully with the NCAA on this matter. The department will continue to urge all student-athletes to utilize the educational components given to them through our compliance office in order to make well-informed choices. As this is an active investigation, there will be no further comment on the matter.”

Spokespeople for Nicholls State and Tulane did not immediately respond to requests for comment.