26 charged in connection with rigging college basketball games as part of FBI investigation

Federal prosecutors charged 26 people in an alleged point-shaving scheme involving dozens of college basketball players, authorities announced Thursday.

U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said players on 17 different NCAA Division I men's basketball teams "fixed and attempted to fix" 29 games.

The allegations cover a period between September 2022 and February 2025. The indictment also includes allegations of influencing or fixing Chinese Basketball Association men's basketball games.

According to the indictment, players were allegedly bribed to tank games to enrich sports gamblers.

Some of the people allegedly involved in the scheme were former college players who are accused of bribing current college players to shave points on games so bettors could capitalize.

Metcalf said the bribes could range between $10,000 and $30,000 per game. The people behind the alleged scheme are accused of finding games in which a corrupted player was on a team that was favored to lose and then bribing the player to deliberately underperform during the game and not cover the point spread, Metcalf said.

"For example, if a team was favored to lose by 4 points, the player would receive a bribe to underperform so that his team would lose by more than that," Metcalf said at a news conference announcing the charges in Philadelphia.

Games involving the following teams were allegedly rigged or impacted, investigators say: Alabama State, Western Michigan University, Butler, St. John's, Tulane, East Carolina, McNeese State, Nicholls State, St. Louis University, Duquesne, La Salle, Fordham, SUNY Buffalo, Kent State, Ohio University, Georgetown and DePaul.

The scheme initially unfolded when former Chicago Bulls player Antonio Blakeney allegedly colluded with professional sports bettors Marvis Fairley and Shane Hennen to fix Chinese Basketball Association games, Metcalf said.

"The scheme proved lucrative," Metcalf said. "Mr. Hennen, we allege, texted a confederate that the only things certain in life were 'death, taxes and Chinese basketball.'"

The scheme was then moved to the U.S., where other people were brought into the fold as it focused on recruiting NCAA players.

"They picked these men because they were well connected in the world of college basketball," Metcalf said. "They knew the players, many of them were players themselves, they were alumni, they were trainers, they were recruiters, they were networkers, they were people of influence, and because of that influence, they added gravitas and legitimacy to the scheme."

NCAA President Charlie Baker responded to the newly revealed allegations by saying that the organization has finished or opened investigations into almost all of the teams named.

"The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA," Baker said in a statement.

The announcement comes less than three months after NBA mainstays Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier and Damon Jones were among dozens of people arrested in a sweeping FBI crackdown on alleged illegal gambling rings.