00:00Our office is announcing criminal charges against 26 defendants that we
00:05allege perpetrated a transnational criminal scheme to fix NCAA Division I
00:11men's basketball games, as well as professional Chinese basketball
00:15association games.
00:17In the indictment and related filings that we unsealed today,
00:21we allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of NCAA players,
00:27alumni and professional betters who fixed games across the country and
00:33poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain.
00:37This conspiracy we allege originated on the other side of the world in China in 2022
00:44with Antonio Blakeney, a former LSU All-American College basketball player and
00:50former NBA Chicago Bull player, who with his co-defendants,
00:55Marvis Fairley and Shane Hennen first colluded to fix professional Chinese
01:01basketball association games.
01:02The scheme here was the defendants would identify a game in which a corrupted
01:08player had a team that was favored to lose.
01:12And then they would bribe said player to deliberately underperform so
01:17that his team would lose by more than they were favored to.
01:20They would bet for them to not cover the point spread.
01:23They started this scheme again with the Chinese basketball association where Mr.
01:27Blakeney was playing and Mr.
01:30Fairley, Mr.
01:31Hennen and Mr.
01:31Blakeney eventually made a lot of money.
01:35Mr.
01:35Hennen, we allege texted a Confederate that the only things certain in life were
01:39quote, death taxes and Chinese basketball.
01:43And because it proved profitable, they decided to take their operation stateside to
01:48the world of NCAA division one men's basketball.
01:51They recruited other players.
01:53They had players recruit their teammates.
01:56And this scheme and this conspiracy eventually mushroomed.
02:00It eventually enveloped 17 NCAA division one programs, 39 players, and 29 games that we
02:09allege were either fixed or attempted to be fixed.
02:13I'm not going to go through every team, school, and game, but I think you all get the point.
02:18This was a massive scheme.
02:21It enveloped the world of college basketball.
02:24It included conferences such as the Big East, the Atlantic 10 Conference, the Sun Belt, the
02:29Horizon League.
02:31It involved games against nationally ranked programs.
02:34It involved games in the playoffs of conference championships.
02:38It was a significant corruption of the integrity of sport.
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