PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An investigation into a sprawling betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games has ensnared 26 people, including more than a dozen college basketball players who tried to fix games as recently as last season, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
The scheme generally revolved around gamblers who placed bets and recruited players with the promise of a big payment in exchange for purposefully underperforming during a game, prosecutors said. Those fixers would then bet against the players’ teams in those games, defrauding sportsbooks and other bettors, authorities said.
Calling it an “international criminal conspiracy,” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf told reporters in Philadelphia that this case represents a “significant corruption of the integrity of sports.” The indictment suggests that many others, including unnamed players, had a role in the scheme but weren’t charged, and Metcalf said the investigation was continuing.
The varying charges against the 26 defendants, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, include bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy. Five of the defendants were described as fixers; three with connections to players through coaching and training and two described as gamblers and sports handicappers.
The fixers started with two games in the Chinese Basketball Association in 2023 and, successful there, moved on to rigging NCAA games as recently as January 2025, the indictment said. Their scheme grew to involve more than 39 players on more than 17 different NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams, who then rigged and attempted to rig more than 29 games, prosecutors said.
They wagered millions of dollars, raking in “substantial proceeds” for themselves, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to players in bribes, prosecutors said. Payments to players typically ranged from $10,000 to $30,000 per game, they said.
In a statement, NCAA President Charlie Baker said protecting the integrity of competition is of the utmost importance for the NCAA and that is investigating, or has finished investigating, almost all of the teams in the indictment.
Prosecutors named more than 40 schools that were involved in games that were targeted by the scheme. Those included Tulane University and DePaul University.
Rigged games included those played by teams in major conferences, while some were playoff games, including the first round of the Horizon League championship and the second round of the Southland Conference championship, prosecutors said.
Players often recruited teammates to cooperate by playing badly, sitting out or keeping the ball away from players who weren’t in on the scheme to prevent them from scoring. Sometimes the attempted fix failed, meaning the fixers lost their bets.
To entice players, fixers would text photos of stacks of cash. In one case, a fixer encouraged a player to recruit a Saint Louis University teammate by texting him one such photo: “send that to him if he bite he bite if he don’t so be it lol,” the indictment said.
In another instance, a fixer trying to persuade an Eastern Michigan University player to get two of his teammates to help fix a game against Wright State University texted, “bro let me send 3k right now a band for each of yall so you know I ain’t joking," the indictment said.
Cash payments were hand delivered — although prosecutors noted that a fixer didn't deliver the cash he promised to four Alabama State University players who helped fix a 2024 game against the University of Southern Mississippi.
Four of the players charged — Simeon Cottle, Carlos Hart, Oumar Koureissi and Camian Shell — played for their current teams in the last few days, although the allegations against them don't involve this season, but the 2023-24 season.
Of the defendants, 15 played basketball for Division I NCAA schools during 2024-25 season, prosecutors say. Five others last played in the NCAA in the 2023-24 season while another, former NBA player Antonio Blakeney, played in the Chinese Basketball Association in the 2022-23 season.
At the end of the Chinese Basketball Association's 2022-23 season, fixers put nearly $200,000 in bribe payments and shared winnings from two rigged games into Blakeney's storage locker in Florida, authorities said.
In 2023, one fixer reassured another by texting him there were no guarantees “in this world but death taxes and Chinese basketball,” court papers said.
The indictment follows a series of NCAA investigations that led to at least 10 players receiving lifetime bans this year. The NCAA doesn’t allow athletes or staff to bet on college games.
Meanwhile, more than 30 people were also charged in last year’s sprawling federal takedown of illegal gambling operations linked to professional basketball.
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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed.