College basketball players among those charged in point-shaving scheme by FBI

Federal prosecutors charged 26 people on Thursday, including several former and current college basketball players, in an alleged point-shaving scheme, according to an indictment obtained by CBS News. The indictment states that more than 39 college basketball players on at least 17 Division I teams “fixed and attempted to fix” over 29 games. 

Seventeen former college basketball players are listed as defendants in the indictment. Fifteen of those players participated in the 2023-24 or 2024-25 seasons. A few have also played this season.

Four of the current players listed in the indictment are: Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle, the preseason Conference USA Player of the Year, who was averaging 20.2 points; Delaware State’s Camian Shell (8.0 ppg); Eastern Michigan’s Carlos Hart (13.1 ppg); and Texas Southern’s Oumar Koureissi (4.9 ppg). 

The list of schools with current or former players alleged to have participated 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, St. John’s, East Carolina, McNeese State, Duquesne, La Salle, Kent State, Ohio, Georgetown as schools affected by the alleged scheme which involved millions of dollars illegally wagered on dozens of mid-major games that past two seasons. 

Even with a lack of high-major schools involved and with no big-name players attached, the scope of the scheme, if proven accurate, would rank among the largest gambling conspiracies in the history of college athletics. 

Two of the primary targets of the investigation are non-athletes, men who built an elaborate plan to get rich illicitly by scheming to fix games far off the mainstream path of college basketball. Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley were purportedly at the center of a conspiracy that includes charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bribery in sports. 

According to the indictment, the scheme began in September 2022 with illegal gambling activity tied to professional basketball in China. Former LSU player Antonio Blakeney was a star for the Chinese Basketball Association’s Jiangsu Dragons and, per investigators, fixed games overseas. 

From there, Blakeney worked with Hennen, Fairley and other co-conspirators to recruit a litany of mid- and/or low-major college basketball players to fix the outcomes of first-half totals and overall games. Players at smalls schools (who were not making big money in NIL deals) allegedly accepted deals of $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, has been separately charged in an undisclosed case.

“We allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of NCAA players, alumni and professional bettors who fixed gains across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain,”U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said Thursday morning at a press conference in Philadelphia.

The betting amounts are eye-opening: $458,000 for NC A&T to lose against Towson; $424,000 on Kent State to cover a first-half spread vs. Buffalo; $275,000 for Southern Miss to not cover a first-half spread against South Alabama; $256,000 for Robert Morris to flop in the first half of a game against Northern Kentucky.

These are massive numbers on afterthought games. Sportsbooks can track all betting patterns, and even with a variety of people in a criminal conspiracy betting on a game in somewhat-smaller amounts, the collective action on a single mid-major contest will be immediately flagged by either the sportsbooks themselves or third-party watchdogs that monitor for integrity purposes.

“This was a massive scheme that enveloped the world of college basketball,” Metcalf said, adding, “this was a significant and rampant corruption of college athletics.” 

The FBI’s indictment cut at the heart of the case: “In placing these wagers on games they had fixed, the defendants defrauded sportsbooks, as well as individual sports bettors, who were all unaware that the 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.”

A lot of the schools and players tagged in the case did not catch the NCAA by surprise. The organization has been able to work independently of the FBI’s probe, the existence of which was known for more than a year. Shortly after Thursday’s news broke, NCAA president Charlie Baker had a statement prepared.

“Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA,” Baker said. “We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports. The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA. “

The NCAA’s work is far from done, though. Every player whom the NCAA has found guilty of altering their stats intentionally to affect game lines and/our outcomes has been banned for life. The count heading into Thursday was 11; the number will rise in light of the FBI unsealing its case. The NCAA’s enforcement staff has looked into “approximately 40 student-athletes from 20 schools over the past year,” per Baker. Most of the NCAA’s cases overlap with the FBI’s.

“The Association has and will continue to aggressively pursue sports betting violations in college athletics using a layered integrity monitoring program that covers over 22,000 contests, but we still need the remaining states, regulators and gaming companies to eliminate threats to integrity — such as collegiate prop bets — to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors,” Baker said. “We also will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement. We urge all student-athletes to make well-informed choices to avoid jeopardizing the game and their eligibility.”  

Former New Orleans players Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavian Short are among the defendants in Thursday’s indictment. Hunter and Short were both sanctioned by the NCAA in November after the Committee on Infractions found that they were involved in illegal gambling and/or game-manipulation activity.

The NCAA’s investigation also included former Arizona State star BJ Freeman, New Orleans’ Jamond Vincent and Mississippi Valley State’s Donovan Sanders and Alvin Stredic. The NCAA stated at the time that its six cases were unconnected. 

Thursday’s news is the latest bad headline tied to alleged illegal gambling in American sports. Hennen and Fairley are central actors in both this case and the October shocker that included the arrests of 30 people in relation to an illegal poker ring and alleged illegal gambling on the NBA. That case most notably included charges against former NBA player Terry Rozier and former NBA player/Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. That investigation was entirely separate from the high-profile story into former NBA player Jontay Porter, who allegedly manipulated his own stats for monetary gain and was quickly banned from the league.

Cross-referencing with the indictment’s detailed allegations, here are the 29 games that the FBI believes were tampered with in men’s D-I college basketball:

Feb. 17, 2024: Nicholls-McNeese StateFeb. 18, 2024: Tulane-East CarolinaFeb. 19, 2024: Northwestern State-Texas A&M Corpus-Christi Feb. 20, 2024: Saint Louis-DuquesneFeb. 21, 2024: La Salle-St. BonaventureFeb. 23, 2024: Fordham-DuquesneFeb. 24, 2024: DePaul-GeorgetownFeb. 24, 2024: Buffalo-Western MichiganFeb. 27, 2024: Buffalo-Kent StateFeb. 28, 2024: Robert Morris-Northern KentuckyFeb. 28, 2024: Southern Miss-South AlabamaMarch 1, 2024: Southern Miss-LouisianaMarch 1, 2024: Kennesaw State-QueensMarch 2, 2024: Tulane-FAUMarch 2, 2024: DePaul-ButlerMarch 4, 2024: Coppin State-South Carolina StateMarch 5, 2024: Buffalo-OhioMarch 5, 2024: DePaul-St. John’sMarch 5, 2024: Robert Morris-Purdue Fort WayneMarch 11, 2024: New Orleans-LamarMarch 19, 2024: Abilene Christian-Texas A&M Corpus-ChristiMarch 20, 2024: Abilene Christian-Tarleton StateMarch 29, 2024: North Carolina A&T-TowsonNov. 21, 2024: Eastern Michigan-OaklandDec. 5, 2024: Alabama State-Southern MissDec. 21, 2024: Eastern Michigan-Wright StateDec. 28, 2024: New Orleans-McNeeseDec. 30, 2024: New Orleans-VanderbiltJan. 11, 2025: New Orleans-Southeastern Louisiana