NBA coach, player arrested in illegal gambling probes
NEW YORK: NBA head coach Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trail Blazers and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested on Thursday for alleged involvement in illegal gambling on a “mind-boggling” scale, US officials said. Billups, a former Detroit Pistons star and a member of the National Basketball Association Hall of Fame, was arrested in connection with rigged illegal poker games tied to Mafia crime families, FBI Director Kash Patel said. Rozier and a former NBA player and assistant coach, Damon Jones, were among six people arrested in a sports betting case, Patel said at a press conference in New York. “The fraud is mind boggling,” Patel said. “It’s not hundreds of dollars, it’s not 1000s of dollars, it’s not 10s of 1000s of dollars. It’s not even millions of dollars. “We’re talking about 10s of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation.”
