Federal prosecutors charged 26 people Thursday, including several former and current college basketball players, in connection with an alleged point-splitting scheme, according to a report. indictment obtained by CBS News. The indictment says more than 39 college basketball players on at least 17 Division I teams “fixed and attempted to fix” over the course of 29 games.
Seventeen former college basketball players are named as defendants in the indictment. Fifteen of these players participated in the 2023-24 or 2024-25 seasons. A few played this season as well.
Four of the current players listed in the indictment are: Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle, preseason Conference USA Player of the Year, who averaged 20.2 points; Camian Shell of Delaware State (8.0 ppg); Carlos Hart of Eastern Michigan (13.1 points per game); and Oumar Koureissi of Texas Southern (4.9 points per game).
The list of schools with current or former players allegedly involved in game-fixing: Abilene Christian, Alabama State, Buffalo, Coppin State, DePaul, Eastern Michigan, Fordham, Kennesaw State, La Salle, New Orleans, Nicholls, North Carolina A&T, Northwestern State, Robert Morris, Saint Louis, Southern Miss and Tulane.
Beyond that, investigators also identified Western Michigan, Butler, Saint John, East CarolinaMcNeese State, Duquesne, The Hall, Kent State, Ohio, Georgetown as schools were hit by the alleged scheme that involved millions of dollars illegally bet on dozens of major games over the past two seasons.
Even without any high schools involved and no big-name players, the scope of the scheme, if proven true, would rank among the greatest gambling conspiracies in the history of college athletics.
Two of the investigation’s main targets are non-athletes, men who hatched an elaborate plan to enrich themselves illegally by plotting to fix games far removed from the traditional college basketball circuit. Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley were allegedly at the center of a conspiracy that included charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and corruption in sports.
According to the indictment, the scheme began in September 2022 with illegal gambling activities related to professional basketball in China. Former LSU player Antonio Blakeney was a star with the Jiangsu Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Federation and, according to investigators, fixed games overseas.
From there, Blakeney worked with Hennen, Fairley, and other co-conspirators to recruit a litany of mid- and/or lower-tier college basketball players to correct the results of the first half and overall game totals. Small school players (who did not make much money from NIL transactions) allegedly accepted transactions ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 to intentionally compromise games for sports betting purposes, according to the FBI.
Blakeney, a former five-start prospect in the class of 2015, was charged separately in an undisclosed case.
“We allege a broad international criminal conspiracy of NCAA players, alumni and professional bettors who rigged winnings across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain,” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said Thursday morning at a news conference in Philadelphia.
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The betting amounts are telling: $458,000 for NC A&T to lose to Towson; $424,000 on Kent State to cover a first-half spread against Buffalo; $275,000 to Southern Miss to avoid covering a first-half spread against South Alabama; $256,000 for Robert Morris to fail in the first half of a game against Northern Kentucky.
Those are massive numbers on games after the fact. Sportsbooks can follow all betting patterns, and even if various people involved in a criminal conspiracy bet on a game in slightly lower quantities, collective action on a single mid-range competition will be immediately reported either by the sportsbooks themselves or by third-party watchdogs monitoring for integrity purposes.
“This was a massive scheme that enveloped the world of college basketball,” Metcalf said, adding, “this was a significant and widespread corruption of college sports.”
THE The FBI indictment is at the heart of the case: “By placing these bets on games that they had rigged, Defendants defrauded sportsbooks, as well as individual sports bettors, all of whom were unaware that Defendants had corruptly manipulated the outcome of these games that should have been decided fairly, based on genuine competition and the best efforts of the players.”
Many of the schools and players involved in this case came as no surprise to the NCAA. The organization was able to work independently of the FBI investigation, the existence of which had been known for more than a year. Shortly after Thursday’s news broke, NCAA President Charlie Baker had a statement prepared.
“Protecting the integrity of competition is of the utmost importance to the NCAA,” Baker said said. “We are grateful to the law enforcement agencies who work to detect and combat integrity issues and game manipulation in college sports. The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information for the NCAA.”
The NCAA’s work is far from done, however. Any player the NCAA found guilty of intentionally altering their statistics in order to affect the lines of play and/or our results was banned for life. The count before Thursday was 11; this number will increase in light of the FBI unsealing his file. NCAA enforcement staff reviewed “approximately 40 student-athletes from 20 schools over the past year,” according to Baker. Most of the NCAA’s cases overlap with those of the FBI.
“The Association has and will continue to aggressively pursue sports betting violations in college athletics using a multi-tiered integrity monitoring program that covers more than 22,000 competitions, but we still need other states, regulators and gaming companies to eliminate integrity threats – such as collegiate prop betting – to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors,” Baker said. “We will also continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement. We urge all student-athletes to make informed choices to avoid jeopardizing the game and their eligibility.”
Ancient New Orleans Players Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavian Short are among those charged in Thursday’s indictment. Hunter and Short were both sanctioned by the NCAA in November after the Infractions Committee found they were involved in illegal gaming and/or game manipulation activities.
The NCAA investigation also included former Arizona State star BJ Freeman, Jamond Vincent of New Orleans and Mississippi Valley State Donovan Sanders and Alvin Stredic. The NCAA said at the time that its six cases were unrelated.
Thursday’s news is the latest bad headline related to alleged illegal gambling in American sports. Hennen and Fairley are central players in this case and the October shocker that included the arrest of 30 people in connection with an illegal poker ring and alleged illegal gambling on the NBA. This case included charges against former NBA player Terry Rozier and former NBA player/Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. This investigation was entirely separate from the high-profile story about former NBA player Jontay Porter, who would have manipulated his own statistics for monetary gain and was promptly banned from the league.
Cross-referencing the detailed allegations in the indictment, here are the 29 games the FBI says were tampered with in DI men’s college basketball:
February 17, 2024: Nicholls-McNeese State
February 18, 2024: Tulane-East Carolina
February 19, 2024: Northwest State-Texas A&M Corpus-Christi
February 20, 2024: Saint Louis-Duquesne
February 21, 2024: La Salle-St. Bonaventure
February 23, 2024: Fordham-Duquesne
February 24, 2024: DePaul-Georgetown
February 24, 2024: Buffalo-West Michigan
February 27, 2024: Buffalo-Kent State
February 28, 2024: Robert Morris-Northern Kentucky
February 28, 2024: Miss South-South Alabama
February 29, 2024: North Carolina A&T-Towson
March 1, 2024: Miss South Louisiana
March 1, 2024: Kennesaw-Queens State
March 2, 2024: Tulane-FAU
March 2, 2024: DePaul-Butler
March 4, 2024: Coppin State-South Carolina State
March 5, 2024: Buffalo-Ohio
March 5, 2024: DePaul-St. Jeans
March 5, 2024: Robert Morris-Purdue Fort Wayne
March 11, 2024: New Orleans-Lamar
March 19, 2024: Abilene Christian-Texas A&M Corpus-Christi
March 20, 2024: Abilene State Christian-Tarleton
November 21, 2024: Eastern Michigan-Oakland
December 5, 2024: Miss South Alabama
December 21, 2024: Eastern Michigan-Wright State
December 28, 2024: New Orleans-McNeese
December 30, 2024: New Orleans-Vanderbilt
January 11, 2025: New Orleans-Southeast Louisiana
