Co-Conspirator 1: We Investigated the NBA Betting Scandal's "Original Sin"

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, presented by eBay Live. I am Pablo Torre, and today you're going to find out what this sound is. Everybody's my friend. Everybody's surrounded, around me, loving me. And whatever I say, that's what it is. That's what happens. Then one day, I wake up. There's 60 federal agents outside my door. Right after this ad. There's a quote in this thing we're going to do here today about the whole NBA gambling scandal that I want to get to. And I need to always be careful, especially with you, when we're comparing things to movies too much. But it keeps on becoming inevitable. Look, I've done my homework this time. I just got done with a rewatch of the Godfather trilogy. I did Goodfellas again, just in case. I also have King of New York, Carlito's Way, so I'm set. I know all about organized crime. Quiz me. The two U.S. government investigations, I mean, about all of this stuff were called what? There was Operation Royal Flush and then there was Operation Nothing But Bet. And can I say again, like I said in the last episode, I hate these naming conventions. But it is helpful for our purposes because we are going to focus on the betting-focused one, Nothing But Bet, and not the poker mob stuff. because now, after leaving those two indictments in October, in our rearview mirror for a second, this happened. And our sports lead yet another sports betting scandal. Breaking tonight, federal prosecutors are charging 26 people in an alleged point-shaving scheme involving dozens of college basketball players. This conspiracy we allege originated on the other side of the world. The scheme proved lucrative. Mr. Hennon, we allege, texted a confederate that the only things certain in life were, quote, death taxes and Chinese basketball? That's the greatest quote in this whole f***ing story. Hold on. Is that our Mr. Hennon? Shane Hennon? Sugar Shane? I mean, we are now in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. This is now three indictments, three continents, by the way, that we're expanding to. And yes, once again, here we have the guy we focused on in our last episode, Mr. Sugar Shane Hennon. And for those who missed the episode, I mean, how would you describe Mr. Hennon? He's a character, to say the least. He looks a little like Carl Pilkington if he cleaned himself up a little bit. Maybe a little bit like Lawrence Frank also. Yes. President of the Clippers. But he sounds like Joe Pesci. Everybody keeps saying, oh my gosh, Shane, you won a million dollars on the weekend. You won a million dollars on Sunday. Like, holy f**k. So yeah, it looks like I cashed out a million dollars, but in all reality, I'm only winning like 50, 60K for the week. And he's someone who has an avid appetite for social justice, particularly LGBT rights. For him, of course, LGBT is Latinas, gambling, beer, and tax evasion. He's the sort of guy who does not seem to care about what he shouldn't be posting on social media, despite being under federal investigation since at least 2024. And we have a new update here, I mean, on that note, because some new footage has just rolled into the studio. We found this on January 12th, and you may notice the soundtrack, and you may notice the activity. At the roulette table, that's my favorite place to be. That ain't the singles that Amin plays with. That's real money. Thousands upon thousands of dollars in chips, and you notice the geotag there, I mean, you're familiar with this location as well. Oh, it's the win! This is NBA hotspot central during summer league. If you're wondering, did Shane Hennon have court-ordered terms that prohibited him from gambling of any kind? The answer, of course, is yes. All of which made one source directly involved in the case join a chorus of gambling insiders, I mean, who informed our last episode because they suspect that Mr. Hennon may still be, as that source put it, quote, a dirtball cooperator with the government himself. Now, according to the Justice Department, Sugar Shane was part of a team. I mean, a network of straw bettors. These are the guys who are actually placing these legal bets on these very suspicious games. And this network, as we've established previously, took the form of a group chat. A group chat that had one particular NBA player as a member. Well, he's infamous now. It's Jonte Porter. Toronto Raptors forward Jonte Porter has been banned from the NBA for life, the league announced. The NBA said that Porter provided confidential information to bettors, limited his own participation in games for gambling purposes, and bet on NBA games. This is back in 2024, feeding information to this group chat of dudes. And this cast of characters now is expanding, right? So that's what this third indictment is doing. Our goal this entire time, Amin, has been to focus and guide the focus for our audience of who should we care about here? Who are the main characters of this film? And I believe that the public generally has gotten a pretty muddy picture of the way in which information in basketball becomes currency because information flows through these people. And for instance, the basketball player who's been making the most headlines recently, according to FBI Director Kash Patel, who calls this whole thing the insider trading saga for the NBA, would be who? The Terry Rozier, a.k.a. Scary Terry. I mean, it's Terry Rozier is asking that federal gambling charges against him be thrown out. His lawyers argue that the government turned a private dispute into a federal case. Rozier has pled not guilty to charges that he tipped off gamblers that he would leave the game early a couple years ago. The charges have prevented him from playing at all this season. His lawyers say the indictment does not allege Rozier placed any bets on himself or that he knew information about his injury would be sold. What bettors ended up doing with that info, they argue, had nothing to do with Rozier. He is due back in court for another hearing in March. Terry Rozier is on the last year of his contract. He was a member of the Miami Heat. The Heat were expected to use that contract perhaps in trade discussions for any number of big name targets out there. But once obviously these indictments came down, he became this kind of untouchable. So Terry Rozier, not with his team, the Miami Heat, not with any team, just kind of staying at home. As he faces those charges of conspiracy, to him at wire fraud and money laundering, for what the government now says was providing, quote, specific information about the timing and nature of his foot injury, which then made its way to the Jonte Porter group chat, that social network of bettors. And we should point out that a federal judge in Brooklyn is expected to rule on procedural matters when Scary Terry and all five of his co-defendants, all of whom have pled not guilty, are scheduled to appear this coming Tuesday in court for Operation Nothing But Bet. And so what we wanted to do here ahead of that hearing was nail down an essential but elusive truth about this whole alleged NBA gambling scheme. Because we know that the first NBA game that the feds mentioned in their timeline is the Terry Rozier game back when he was with the Charlotte Hornets in the spring of 2023. But we wanted to find out when this movie actually started. Like, we wanted to identify where this network first got together to start manipulating these basketball games. And so we started to retrace the trail of clues left by the federal government. We started investigating all of this pre-Cash Patel back in 2023. And in Operation Nothing But Bet, the feds included a long list of, quote, other relevant individuals. these unnamed co-conspirators, about whom the feds mentioned something that has mostly flown under the radar. They said that at least one of these co-conspirators had been an NBA player, not named Terry Rozier, who was allegedly profiting off of inside information as well. And so we decided to make a whole lot of calls about this. one of them to Terry Rozier's lawyer. His name, helpfully, is Jim Trustee. Yeah. A real name for a former federal prosecutor who is also represented another client frequently in the news. Do you know who his other famous client is? Is it Donald J. Trump? It is the president of the United States. Yeah. And so, what we wanted to know from Mr. Trustee was, you know, we're looking at this whole cast of characters in this mob movie. What should we be focused on? You got me thinking how Joe Pesci stars in a basketball movie. I don't know. Look, I think any high-profile case gets attention up the chain to the attorney general and potentially all the way to the White House sometimes. But I don't view this as like a big political moment. Generally, if you call a bunch of people unindicted co-conspirator 1 through 100, That's a sign that at least some portion of those folks are on Team America and are whispering sweet nothings into the prosecutor's ears. A lot of texts coming into Jim Trustee's phone lately. A lot of people trust him. So my concern out of all of that, you have some people with really dirty hands trying to deliver Terry to the prosecution because they know it's not a great case against them. And it's going to help them to bring down the trophy. And so what we wanted to find out was how this case got built. And the speculation, the thing that's been happening in back channels all around this case, we've heard whispered for months by people who are intimately familiar with this whole saga, brings us to what he alluded to, which is the really dirty hands that might be hiding in plain sight in the story. And those really dirty hands, we have been told, belong to one particular unindicted co-conspirator. This is someone who has not been named, but this is somebody, Amin, who brings us back into a world that I think a lot of your friends have been trying to convince you to quit. There's so many things on that list. Is it alcohol? Is it going to Vegas? What? Kind of all of that. Latinas? but also the nether regions of the NBA internet. So the aforementioned Sugar Shane Hannon, he of the death, taxes, and Chinese basketball quote, which I do still want on merch, This dude was the guy who allegedly ran the network of dudes on the Jonte Porter group chat, the ones who were placing the actual bets with the sportsbooks, right? We're down to legalized gambling era. That's how this all was happening. That's how money was being put on these games. But the man who was allegedly obtaining that inside information for these bettors, I mean, was Sugar Shane's business partner. And the reason this business partner is so important to this story is because the thing we've been referring to as the Jonte Porter group chat is something he himself has branded in a different way. Because this business partner happens to be a sports betting influencer. And his name, his government name, is Marvez Fairley. But according to the DOJ, he also has a useful list of nicknames. Yes. Also known as Vez, a.k.a. Vezino, a.k.a. Vezino Lox. And I remember this guy from the last episode. we actually played some of his promotional material. I need everybody to join in and let's get some money, man. This is our year. We've been waiting on this. Let's get some money. Describe the visuals, please. Wow. This gives me all the chills. I need you guys to tune in and let's make this season remarkable, man. This is legendary. Vizino is at the head of the boardroom table and he's wearing a suit. He's looking real sharp. There's a pile of money in front of him on this table. Behind him, three pictures of Kobe Bryant because you always have to have three. The Holy Trinity, the triangle offense right there. And then surrounded, we see his consigliaries. And he's the only black guy in the room, Vizino is. I believe everyone here is white. There may be one guy who's either Asian or Hispanic, but certainly not black. And he's giving a pump-up speech. Yes. And these guys are clearly not paid actors because they don't know quite how to, you know, project getting pumped up. One, two, three. This is like, you know, Wolf of Wall Street, but with people who otherwise would be better suited to attend like the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Absolutely. It's also maybe a little more, you recall the Princess Bride? Yes. It's a little more Vizzini than Vizzino. Inconceivable. He didn't fall? Inconceivable. You keep using the word. I don't think it means what you think it means. But Marvez Farrelly, Vizzino, is a 40-year-old former hooper. Okay? Listed at 6'2 in scouting reports for the Jackson Tigers. This is Jackson, Mississippi. This is an AAU squad. that became one of the best youth hoops teams in the entire country in 2003. And also on this roster with Vizzino, you'll notice, I mean, is who? Oh, that's the one and only Big Al Jefferson. It played for the Celtics, the Jazz, the Timberwolves, Charlotte Bobcats. Big Al Jefferson, 6'10", center, cousins with Vizzino locks. to give you a sense of just the network that we're now entering. But his life takes a different turn. According to police records and court documents, Vizzino would go on to become a weed dealer and a bookie. And in 2018, according to one of multiple trailers Vizzino has posted for an as yet unpublished documentary, he becomes a character in a different kind of movie. Everybody's my friend. Everybody's surrounded, around me, loving me. And whatever I say, that's what it is. That's what happens. Then one day, I wake up. There's 60 federal agents outside my door. 60 federal agents, kind of like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas, remember? The helicopters. Oh, so all those mob movies I watched, I knew it would come in handy. Got it, okay. The nonfiction is in the fact that in 2018, Vizino Lox was indicted for something quite serious, allegedly ordering the murder of a woman and her husband, who was a guy who had allegedly robbed Vizino's brother. And what happened next, I mean, in the movie of Vizino Locks' life, in September of 2022, this is a few years later, Vizino Locks LLC was formed. And we love LLCs on this show. We sure do. And the Vizino Express, which is, you guessed it, a party bus with a stripper pole in the back, was subsequently purchased. Ah, I thought the Vizino Express was a substack. I cannot wait for this documentary to come out, man. There's a lot going on in the Vizino world. But if you keep following this trail of clues, you get back to the start of the government's timeline for this alleged NBA gambling scheme in the spring of 2023. Because Marvis Farrelly would have the murder charges dropped in favor of pleading guilty that year to a lesser crime of obtaining a cell phone in prison. And then he apparently served zero years of a 15-year sentence while dealing with, according to a Mississippi judge, quote, some issues that need to be worked out between the defendant and district attorney's office and other agencies, end quote. And Vizzino-Lox would not get locked up and continue to plead not guilty in all of these basketball indictments, by the way. And his attorney, for the record, declined to comment in response to our detailed list of questions. But into the frame walks yet another character who is allegedly linked to Vizino Locks and Sugar Shane's betting network, and who also pleaded not guilty, despite being connected to scary Terry Rozier, and also to our mysterious unnamed co-conspirator. The feds introduced this particular character by name in the indictment for Operation Nothing But Bet. I mean, if you could please read. The March 23rd, 2023 Charlotte Hornets game. Terry Rozier informed the defendant, De Niro Laster, that Rozier was going to prematurely remove himself from the game in the first quarter due to a supposed injury. As the DOJ, once again, lists a series of aliases. De Niro Laster also known as Peso P and Peso P And De Niro Laster is kind of perfectly named for what he appears to be which is a lower level but very key figure in this whole network in this network of straw bettors slash group chat slash Vizino Locks Enterprise. And as for Peso's physical appearance, you should know that De Niro Laster also played linebacker at the University of Kentucky, as you can kind of tell in this photo of him here, right next to his attorney, as they're walking into the courthouse together in the Eastern District of New York. He's a guy that strikes me as someone who likes to spend a lot of time in the morning about how he looks. He's got this resplendent white coat, almost like a bubble coat, with a fur lining on the hood. He's got a very, very dark beard there. And then he's got those gloves that I've always wanted but never had. The ones that have a slit where the index fingers are so that you can still use your phone. But before we get to De Niro Laster's cell phone usage, which is quite relevant to this alleged scheme, you should know that Peso is also a childhood friend of Terry Rozier, the guy whose inside information Peso allegedly sent to Vizino Locks, who then allegedly passed it on to his partner, Sugar Shane Hennon, so that legal NBA bets could very prophetically be made on Rozier's unders. All of which brings us to the lawyer right next to De Niro Laster. In that photograph. This sort of like Alec Baldwin-ass looking attorney. That's what I was going to, I swear to God, Alec Baldwin-looking ass. This attorney, for the record, did not respond to multiple requests for comment in time for our deadline. We tried him in person at the courthouse last year, and then by email and phone and text over the last six weeks. But what we can tell you is that his resume, not unlike Terry Rozier's attorney's resume, also contains a detail that looks increasingly valuable in America's modern federal justice system. Because this attorney has also represented a certain president of the United States. Donald J. Trump? President Donald J. Trump. Oh, wow. Two for two. And that attorney would also, by the way, he paid for by Terry Rozier, as we would learn later. But according to the feds, in court filings this month, legal fees were not the only thing Scary Terry has paid for when it comes to peso. The U.S. Attorney's Office now says that once Terry Rozier's unders hit, Scary Terry also paid for De Niro's flights to Philadelphia, allegedly to pick up tens of thousands of dollars from Vizino Lox, a.k.a. Marvez Fairley. And as the government put it, quote, this represented the kickback for the inside information. And so, in a nutshell, that's how Team Vizino Lox allegedly worked. Inconceivable! What was apparently quite conceivable was the need to count this money, which allegedly happened at Scary Terry's house with De Niro right there, helping him do the math. The defendant, De Niro Laster, sold the information about the defendant, Terry Rozier's plan to leave the March 23rd game early to multiple co-conspirators, including to the defendant, Marvis Fairley, and co-conspirator number one, to enable them to place fraudulent wagers based on the non-public information. In exchange for the information, Fairleigh and co-conspirator number one agreed to pay Laster approximately $100,000 from their expected fraudulent gambling winnings. Prior to the March 23rd game, Fairleigh, Laster and co-conspirator number one exchanged text messages confirming that Rozier planned to exit the game prematurely and confirming their plan to place wagers on Rozier's unders, i.e. that Rozier would underperform relative to the odds maker's betting lines for his individual performance. This is where I need to tell you, I mean, that De Niro Laster is not the athlete, the mystery man with the really dirty hands we were alluding to before. And Vizino Locke's Marvis Fairley is not that character either. The person that I think is essential to understanding this whole mess, the person who unlocks how this all actually started, the actual genesis of this gambling scandal enveloping the NBA and spanning the globe, is a new athlete. Co-conspirator number one. And the list, as you continue to read it, is full of clues, I mean, as to who co-conspirator number one would be. And they're a bit cryptic as the federal government lays it out for us. Co-conspirator number one, an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury, was a resident of Florida. Co-conspirator number one was at times an NBA player. And I love what at times is daring us to contemplate here. What is it? What the f*** does it mean to be at times an NBA player? To me, it indicates someone who is not continuously an NBA player. So if I took someone, just take a Oscar Robertson was not at times an NBA player. He was an NBA player for the duration of his career versus someone who maybe was out of the league, got back into the league, come back out of the league. You're doing that little dozy dough, then you would be considered at times an NBA player. Right. Okay, I'll go with that as opposed to the more cruel description, which is like the dude just like disappears in the fourth quarter. He's an NBA player until clutch time, in which case he becomes occasionally not an NBA player. Not nice, Pablo. So here are the details. At times an NBA player and a Florida resident. But as we continue to flip through this indictment, there is another type of clue that we need to consider here. Because this Florida resident, at times NBA player, is also someone with a deeply valuable network in the NBA. His relationships, I mean, are quite important to Team Vizzino locks, allegedly. And if we look at the timeline here of inside information about the NBA games in question, which Vizzino allegedly bought, and then Sugar Shane allegedly placed those bets on, it takes us to March and April 2023. That's when the timeline starts. And the red flags about co-conspirator number one continue to populate the story. Jared Rogier's still in the game. He's played every minute of our first quarter. According to the Feds, co-conspirator number one wasn't just involved when Terry Rozier strangely exited that Hornets game early on March 23rd, 2023. Prosecutors also allege that co-conspirator number one was involved in multiple bets that this network placed on the Trailblazers game on March 24th, 2023. The very next night, a blowout loss to the Bulls that has since implicated Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. Bulls move on down the road, and the Blazers will continue to play here at home. And on top of that, there was the Orlando Magic's blowout loss on April 6th, 2023, for which Vizzino, Locs, and co-conspirator number one allegedly worked together to place a fraudulent bet as well. And if you keep reading the timeline in this original indictment, I mean, following the path of somebody who has somehow been flying under the radar, someone who was a resident of Florida and at times an NBA player, there are even more red flags. The defendant Marvis Fairley and co-conspirator No. 1 leverage co-conspirator No. 1's personal relationship with one of the Magic's regularly starting players, Player 2, an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury, to obtain non-public information about the April 6th game, which they used to place at least one successful wager. And I will admit here that based on just these clues, We spent months trying to solve the mystery of who the f**k co-conspirator number one is based on those clues mentioned in this indictment. But then we got a tip that we were actually looking for the wrong kind of red flag. Welcome, Amin, to the Chinese Basketball Association, one of the most predictable things in the world, along with death and taxes, because this is spring 2023, the same period as those alleged other insider trading NBA games. And it's the playoffs. It's an elimination game. is the Jiangsu Dragons versus the Shanghai Sharks. And the Sharks are favored. The Sharks are favored. They're coming back late in the fourth quarter. And the comeback is enabled, I would say, because number two on the Jiangsu Dragons continues to do stuff like this. So he tried to go behind his back, but then, you know how the ball leaves his left hand? The right hand never even attempts to pick up on it. Bounces off a butt shape. Yeah. Yeah. And then... And then you get an inbound pass to nobody that even the announcer said, what? He gets that tech for arguing. He then dribbles it out at the end instead of firing up a quick three. Again, not really making logical decisions. Number two, by the way. Number two on the Dragons. He's the leading scorer in the entire Chinese Basketball Association at this point. He was scoring 32.7 points a game, but he just kept on stepping on that series of incredibly suspicious rakes. We should point out, Pablo, that this wasn't like in the third quarter. This is in the fourth quarter of a tightly contested game. But number two, who we've been focusing on here, is otherwise known here in the United States as who? I'm not going to lie to you. I don't recognize the face. I wonder if I'll recognize the name. You are not alone in your lack of recognition, but how dare you forget Antonio Blakeney. Whoa! I remember him from LSU. That is now Antonio Blakeney with a more mature goatee, and he's grown out his hair. Coming out of high school, top 25 recruit. He went to LSU when LSU was in the big business of getting big-time players. Ben Simmons was the top player in the country. So he was part of that kind of recruiting class. He had a cup of coffee in the league, I think. And we heard this on an episode of the Euro Insiders podcast when they interviewed Antonio Blakeney recently himself. Check the highlights, man. Like, people were calling you the best core in the country. So how did your environment shape the player that you are today? I mean, I came up from like the urban area in Florida, like Sarasota, Florida and stuff. So, you know, it made me tougher. I used to go to the rec center a lot. Oh, that builds you up. That builds character, man. Yeah, I played out of open gym. You ran McDonald's All-American, correct? Yep. At this moment, I guess you guys have so much confidence. And I think the only thing like you guys think about is NBA, right? Yeah. Is it something that like you have kind of regrets that your career wasn't only NBA or like how like this mental aspect played into your mind? I mean, obviously the NBA was always the main goal, and I did end up getting there. I didn't last as long as I wanted to, but I don't have really any regrets. So I just got to jump in here to point out that Antonio Blakeney's No Regrets podcast interview that we've been listening to came out in November of 2025, just weeks after the Nothing But Bet indictment went public, which is important to know. Because while Antonio Blakeney wore number nine for the Chicago Bulls from 2017 to 2019, and then number two for the Jiangsu Dragons in 2023, we here at Pablo Torre Finds Out are examining the case that Antonio Blakeney also played another role with a different number. Co-conspirator number one. Is he a Florida resident? Check. Is he at times an NBA player? Look, I just want to say, when I say a cup of coffee in the league, that is the textbook definition of someone who was, at times, an NBA player. Yes, and for the record here, we've been trying to ask Antonio Blakeney about all of this for weeks. Through his lawyers, his personal cell phone, even through reporters abroad, which we'll get to, and his legal counsel declined to comment. But the more crucial question is not whether Antonio Blakeney was ever an NBA player who lived in Florida. It's whether he was intimately connected to the co-defendants we've been discussing in this episode. Sugar Shane, Fazzino Lox, De Niro Peso Laster, and scary Terry Rozier. And this timeline brings us all the way back now to when Antonio Blakeney was that 17-year-old prospect in high school, who got recruited by not only LSU, but also Kentucky. And on this night in 2014, the Louisville Cardinals, whose staff, led by head coach Rick Pitino, put on a full court press, as recorded in these contemporaneous notes in a journal about Blakeney's unofficial visit to Louisville alongside his guardian. The guardian being the him who was referenced in this quote, Amin. Quote, we introduced ourselves and Antonio directed me to the back bedroom while he and parentheses my daughter stayed in the living room. I asked him if Antonio was coming to Louisville. He smiled and said, it depends. I knew then it was time to get started. End quote. So this is one of many journal entries in a book that was co-written by Katina Powell, a former escort and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Indianapolis Star, who we spoke to, and who worked to verify Powell's claims along with the publisher of this book. And what you should know here is that after this book came out about a decade ago, ESPN also happened to speak with Katina Powell herself. I did everything to make those guys sign. when you offer what you offer, then of course, hey, I'll sign on the line. If this is what they're giving, they're providing, sure. And there is also a receipt for a moneygram at Walmart and a screenshot of an Instagram DM sent by Powell's daughter at the book publisher's request of herself in a bikini with the messages, quote, hey, do you remember me from Louisville? Dot, dot, dot. Embassy Suites, question mark, question mark. to which at Blakeney96 apparently replied, Yeah, I do. What's up? Blakeney's mom told the publisher on her son's behalf that Antonio denied ever being at that embassy suites. But there is yet another contemporaneous journal entry from this book that I want to reference here because it involves another star recruit who was already on the team when Antonio Blakeney visited and also eventually went on to play for the Charlotte Hornets from 2019 to 2024. We had a new recruit from Cleveland named Terry, dark-skinned, big black b**k. This time, I copped out and took tickets instead of money. Two sets of tickets. This time, it was Too Tall and NeNe that took down the new recruit. But I know that it was my girl Too Tall that worked her magic. Get it, girl. I feel disgusting. And I think the term actually that you feel is really dirty, right? The really dirty hands. You've officially substantiated that claim. And Terry Rozier, as to these claims, told ESPN at the time that he didn't want to talk about it. He added that Rick Pitino, who was eventually suspended and fired because of this scandal, had his nose clean in this whole thing. And Pitino himself has always denied knowledge of all this stuff, although Scary Terry himself never denied the claims in subsequent questioning. Later that summer, though, Antonio Blakeney comes to campus to Louisville for his official visit. And he's there to watch the Louisville-Miami football game on Labor Day. And there is now a since-deleted tweet as we see this photo. Oh, wow. It's Terry Rozier, a young Terry Rozier, and Antonio Blakeney. And he certainly seems to be enjoying himself. yes, a pre-goatee, shorter-haired Antonio Blakeney, verbally committed to the Louisville Cardinals that week. And so, just to speed run through the incredible and also just unsecure career of Antonio Blakeney, never makes it to Louisville, obviously. He decommits less than three weeks after that photo with Scary Terry. And he joins LSU, it's Ben Simmons, it's the killer bees. And then, Antonio Blakeney leaves college early and goes undrafted in 2017. And again, we return to the Euro Insiders podcasts, which we were listening to earlier, because Antonio Blakeney says something that is quite relatable to many, at times, NBA players. So that was like the hardest point like being at Summer League trying to be positive First two games don even get in the game So I going back to the room sad as hell You know what I saying Like dang I don know if it going to work out I don know what I going to do I don't got no money. There was no NIL at the time. So I had no money coming out of college. So it was tough. So to describe to people, because I used to kind of be one of the people running the summer league program for the Suns. Many a time, these players don't realize this. They live a fairy tale in their head, which kind of is a necessary delusion that they need in order to be great athletes, which is I'm going to be the one. I'm going to wow them at Summer League. I'm going to invite to camp. I'm going to wow them at camp. And then I'm going to have this great career. But the reality is it is not a likely tale. And as Antonio Blakeney points out there, even if you are drafted, you don't get paid until November at the earliest. So many of these guys are living basically off of loans, loans from an agent, loans from someone else to help them float and skate by until they can get to their first paycheck. And so this question of who gets to qualify and call themselves an NBA player, I mean, technically, there is a vast universe of guys whose own psychology demands that they think they're going to beat the odds while the odds are against them. And that can work, and you become, as you put it, eventual NBA starters. Or in this case, the case of Antonio Blakeney, the Chicago Bulls give him a two-way contract, winds up in the G League, winds up a cup of coffee in the NBA. And along the way, as you scroll through his Instagram account, at Blakeney96, the same one, you see him hanging out with Dwayne Wade in the G League. He's averaging a single-season record 32 a game. He was named the G League Rookie of the Year in 2018, which is, you know, an honor of its own. And the next season after that, Antonio Blakeney, who again is the guy I'm convinced, but still need to prove here, is the U.S. government's secret and unindicted co-conspirator number one. He ends up playing in 76 NBA games, averaging seven and a half points a night off the bench for the Chicago Bulls. including on December 8th, 2018, when the Boston Celtics came to Chicago, and the night after that, an Instagram account, at PSM P-E-S-O, posted this photo. I mean, here are three guys, the person on the right, if you zoom in on his face, you may recall it as one of the great child performances in sports movie history. That's a weak-ass boy, You big ass motherfucking busters. What did you say? I believe he said that is some weak ass bullshit. Was that it, G-Baby? Yeah, let's see. Hold on. That's G-Baby from Hardball? Is it ever? To be clear, the guy in the middle, that's our guy Laster, right? A.K.A. Peso. At PSM Peso. At PSM Peso. is in fact De Niro Laster. And right next to him, all grown up, is G-Baby, a.k.a. Dwayne Warren, from the 2001 classic Hardball. He's older. I don't know if he's grown up. But now, on the other side of De Niro Laster, I mean, in the camouflage jacket, the person who liked this post himself on Instagram, let's zoom in on him, is who? That is our guy, Antonio Blakeney. Which is all to say that this is what the reality of a social network in any sport, but particularly in this case, the NBA actually looks like. I mean, a bunch of dudes who know each other from all sorts of different places that they once stopped through in their lives. And frankly, it's the difficulty of how to control the flow of information here. Because it's not just the stars like Terry Rozier. It's also everybody else who is at times around them that also is hearing and knowing and sharing these tidbits that are now legally actionable bits of monetizable currency. It's kind of like Saturn's rings. They look like one solid ring, but as you get closer, you realize it's just a bunch of meteors and bits and pieces of rock. They're all floating together. And so if you're saying, hey, I'm going to get rid of these rings, you're not just going to grab a whole ring and just walk away with it like a hula hoop. You've got to remove each one of these countless pieces of rock. Right. And Pluto, of course, at times a planet. Its own tortured existence. It had a cup of coffee in the solar system. Is that what you're saying? It had a cup of coffee in the Milky Way. Absolutely. I want to take us, though, to the way in which this story truly distinguishes itself, right? Because this is a familiar dynamic, a familiar network dynamic. But man, I don't know if there are as many networks that just post about how much they're in network with each other as much as these dudes did. So for instance, De Niro Laster would eventually comment on another post on Instagram. This. You da man. And what post was that comment on? It was this betting slip. And this betting slip was posted, of course, by this guy. Vizino Locks. And on various Instagram accounts that we've dug up here, you can see Scary Terry and Antonio Blakeney working out together in Miami. This is the summer of 2019. And the caption is... Breakout season ready! Exclamation point! Exclamation point! And at Blakeney96. Now, the Bulls, back on planet Earth, were about to buy out his contract for the season. forcing him to give up the $100,000. But he would make it up with a multi-million dollar deal in China. And when he's back in America after his first season in China, you again see the value of the international basketball experience. This is one of his friends' Instagram story highlights. We were really digging through the crates here. And it's Antonio Blakeney on the same boat as Gary Terry Rozier on the weekend of AB's 24th birthday party back in Florida, where, of course, he had a residence. And it is titled... 100 Grand Birthday Bash. This is great. It's a flyer. It's him. He's got some chains on. He's got a Dior t-shirt on. There's a very attractive young woman standing behind him, holding up what is supposed to be, I guess, a sign that says October 2nd on it. That 100 Grand Birthday Bash celebrating Blakely 96. Oh, there's stacks of money photoshopped on there. And so, as we follow the trajectory, the COVID bubble, it's with the Cavs G League team, again, near his old stomping grounds in Florida. He's at Disney World in 2021. And that brings us to this headline. That may, I mean, in the Orlando Sentinel. NBA G Leaguer Antonio Blakeney arrested in Kissimmee for arranging robbery. A deputy said Blakeney invited two men over to his house to play cards and then invited another group over to rob them, records show. Now, what's weird about these court records, Antonio Blakely's court records, is that they have since been expunged. But records we requested from the Osceola County Sheriff's Department do paint a pretty bizarre scene. Because once you read through all these documents, what you see is a card game. And what a victim told officers is that 20 minutes into this poker night, and again, we're back in the world of poker for a bit, Antonio Blakeney answered his door when five men armed with handguns, which had laser beams on them, walked in and started, quote, robbing the entire house. They allegedly stole electronics, a Louis Vuitton bag with $30,000 in cash, and also Antonio Blakeney's bag as well. And the men said, quote, move and I'll kill you. I'll shoot you in the face. In an arrest report for one of the other suspects in this incident, the victim says, quote, he and Antonio often gamble large amounts of money frequently and Antonio owed him nearly $23,000, end quote. And in that arrest document, an officer writes of interviewing Blakeney on the scene. He stated he was upstairs. He did not hear anything or see anything. I advised him the other victim stated he was downstairs, and he actually knew the suspects, which again, he denied. I confronted him with the fact that the victim stated he was on FaceTime with one of the suspects, and he again denied knowing what I was speaking about. I asked to see Antonio's phone to provide me if he was lying or the other victims were lying. The officer reported that phone records showed that Antonio Blakeney did indeed FaceTime one of the five suspects before the robbery and did in fact receive a message from another suspect telling him that he had his bag. Also, three of the robbers were Blakeney's friends, apparently, who had been overplaying cards the night before. This is, come on, man. This is like a comedy, right? You're going to have your boys who play cards with you the night before do the robbery? Allegedly, that seems to be the case. But less than three weeks later, a victim files this affidavit. Quote, it is my desire that the case against Antonio Blakeney and any others not be prosecuted. The incident was a misunderstanding, unquote. So case closed, no prosecution. and the reason we're going through all of these things step by step is merely to show you that Antonio Blakeney, despite being all over various radars at this point, keeps flying under them. And this brings us after various stops in Summer League with the Blazers and then in Bahrain, where Antonio Blakeney played in their Premier League, and then up to Israel with apologies to Vizzini from The Princess Bride. And you, friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless, do you want me to send you back to where you were, unemployed in Greenland? Oh, man. I feel like this is one of the crueler episodes we've ever done, man. But in this case, no, we are talking not about Greenland, but back to China. And so it's spring of 2023. I mean, it's that key period where all of this is being cooked up. And you'll remember how Antonio Blakeney, who was leading scorer for the Chinese Basketball Association for the Jiangsu Dragons, number two. You remember how he, you know, was bouncing the ball off his ass in the playoffs. Yes? Yeah. That was in April of 2023. But the whole thing with the CBA scandal wasn't just the Dragons who appeared to blow the game. Their opponent, allegedly, had been throwing games as well earlier in that playoff series. Yao Ming, who was the president of the CBA at the time, he has since resigned, he fined the two teams, banned their coaches, banned their GMs for years each, and said in a statement this. We are deeply saddened by the incident. In sports competitions, reputation is more important than ability. And that's a pretty, post-translation, a pretty profound and useful reminder, right? He's always been a very eloquent man. Well, look, from his vantage point, seven feet, six inches in the air, I think it's pretty obvious to see that all sports has is its integrity, its reputation, because that is what convinces people to even care about, let alone place bets on, these games in the first place. And so a match-fixing incident, on the one hand, very serious. On the other hand, no punishment announced in the CBA for the players. Meaning, once again, for whatever reason, Antonio Blakeney is flying under the radar. Because a month earlier, in March, this is now going to the U.S. government, Antonio Blakeney had been point shaving in the Chinese Basketball Association. So we return to some illustrative video exhibits that illustrate this point. That's a terrible miss by Blakeney. Let's see here, he's got the rebound, he's pushing in the front court. Just a lackluster attempt at a layup. Another brick from three. You know, it's funny because when done right, you really can't tell whether a guy is just not playing well or if he's point-shaving, as opposed to, when done poorly, dribbling the ball off your butt. It is obvious that it is point-shaving. Well, this is a really good point, as it were, because it is one thing to be the leading scorer in the CBA, 32 points a game, averaging 28 shots a night over the previous eight games, only to score 11 on 3 of 11 shooting in the game we just showed clips from. But it's also worthy of further substantiation. And, I mean, I just now want you to read from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania's indictment. This is the one filed just last month, which finally names, for the first time, but does not charge, Antonio Blakeney, age 29. On or about March 6, 2023, in the CBA men's basketball game between Guangdong and Jiangsu, Antonio Blakeney underperformed in and influenced the game as he and the Fixers had agreed. And this in the grand timeline that the federal government has provided is the real original sin of Team Vizino locks. It's March 6th, 2023. And this is, I will remind you, before the NBA games that implicate scary Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups and Jante Porter even in America, right? This, I mean, is allegedly the pilot program for this entire scheme. This is what the document continues to say. Before this game, the Fixers, including defendants Marvis Fairley and Shane Hennon and others working at their direction, placed large wagers with numerous sportsbook, including at least $198,300 in wagers with Bet Rivers Sportsbook at Rivers Casino in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Guangdong to cover the full game spread. Defendants Fairley and Hennon engaged in numerous text message communications directing wagers on this game. This is the birth, the true birth, as documented, of the Team Vizino Locks Network, formerly known as the Jonte Porter Group Chat, because they tried this s*** in China, man. That's where they first attempted the most ambitious and infamous scheme in the era of modern legalized sports gambling. Allegedly, Vizino Lox and Sugar Shane recruited from 7,900 or so miles away, a guy who would shave points by taking his performance in exchange for, quote, bribe payments, because as Sugar Shane himself would allegedly celebrate via text message, in this network a couple weeks later. Oh, Jesus. Nothing guaranteed in this world but death, taxes, and Chinese basketball. He's an eloquent man as well. It is incredible that this is how that quote comes to be. Although I should also add that a lawyer for Shane Hennon did not respond to a detailed list of questions from us, but that he has previously maintained his innocence in the New York cases and that he has not yet entered a plea in this Pennsylvania case. And what this Eastern District of Pennsylvania indictment further alleges is that a week after Antonio Blakeney's alleged original sin in China happens, this is still a week before the original Terry Rozier game happens in the United States, Antonio Blakeney also recruits a teammate, allegedly, to help him guarantee that their CBA opponent would cover the spread back at that sportsbook in Philadelphia, back in America. And by April, According to the indictment, this is before the CBA playoffs started, quote, Defendant Marvis Fairley placed a package into Antonio Blakeney's storage unit in Florida, which contained nearly $200,000 in cash, representing bribe payments and proceeds from the fixed CBA games during the season. Now, one of the crazier parts of this story that makes this a question and a story about structure, as well as one about individual characters who have various flaws and virtues in their own respective ways is of course the basic fact to mean that it turns out right now you could bet on the f***ing Chinese Basketball Association legally in America. Dude, that was the first thing that jumped out at me. They bet $198,000 on a Chinese basketball game. There's a place that's going to take that bet? That's how it happens, right? Allegedly. Allegedly. They are so egregious in how they conduct their scheme Team Vizzino locks unsubtle right They raise the red flags themselves And that why we here talking about this Right. So you bet a lot on a Chinese basketball game. That's one. But then you get their best player, not to, oh, merely hit his unders, to go 11 points. That's 20 plus points under his season average in China. And then you take that from there and you say, let's scale up and get to the NBA. And then you say, let's scale up again, allegedly, and say, no more fringe players. Give me one of the guys who's making a lot of money who plays considerably for a team. Allegedly. Allegedly. But there is a mirror logic here, right? To the G League player who wants to make it to the NBA. You start at the lower levels and you think, man, this worked here. Let's keep on climbing the ladder. Right? And one of the fascinating things as we examine the vulnerabilities here, right? Antonio Blakeney, according to every bit of reporting we've done here, could really use that money. He said it himself in that podcast before. The other landscape that has opened up to this same model of a scheme is in college basketball. And this is the next thing that we haven't even gotten to yet because we're still tracing our steps. But the Eastern District of Pennsylvania's focus, the vast scope that it now has, involves college kids. Right. I kind of feel like Antonio Blakeney exists at a weird nexus in American sports in that if he were born a little later, he would have, by his own admission in that interview, would have been eligible for the NIL riches that have bestowed upon countless athletes now, thus removing perhaps the impulse or the need to engage in any of these type of activities. Well, absolutely. But now, remember, if you're going to make the parallel from the NBA universe to the college basketball universe, just as there are stars in college basketball, there are kids for whom NIL is not really going to be that much of a moneymaker. And so what is being alleged in this indictment from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is a scheme in which Antonio Blakeney is using his credibility with these players, with the basketball world, and he's communicating, often via FaceTime, allegedly, to help them accept $10,000 to $30,000 per game to help these prop betting networks hit unders. So what the government is discovering in their analysis of this betting data is that Team Vizzino-Lox worked to fix more than 29 games, engaging more than 39 players from 17-plus schools. And we're not talking about, like, Duke necessarily. We're talking about group chats that Antonio Blakeney was allegedly texting alongside Vizzino and Sugar Shane to load up, that's a quote, to load up on Duquesne. They bet millions of dollars in the aggregate deep into 2024. And so 2024, as college basketball is now dealing with the problem that got exported from China to the NBA and to the amateur ranks that are now increasingly professional in America, we're realizing that this is the same year that Antonio Blakeney, according to a court document that was unsealed just last month, was charged with this. October 17, 2024 Violation Conspiracy to commit wire fraud One count And I just want to juxtapose that That charge Against what Antonio Blakeney told That Euro Insider podcast In an episode that was broadcast The month after this charge was levied Because Antonio Blakeney again lets us into His personal psychology Obviously the NBA was always the main goal and I did end up getting there. I didn't last as long as I wanted to. But I don't have really any regrets. You know, I actually liked playing in Europe. Last year was my first year in Europe, but I always watched it, you know? Like, I always, like, paid attention to it because, like, the basketball over here is, like, crazy. So we play that video, I mean, because throughout this story, we've been noticing the ways in which the aforementioned, previously displayed Sugar Shane Hennon is out here still talking and posting and doing things that seem to defy what makes sense based on the accusations and allegations levied by the federal government itself. Marvis Fairley, still posting, still talking about Vizino Locks on Instagram, also familiar in this way. And this is the crazy part about Antonio Blakeney, given everything we've just found out in this story together, which is that while Terry Rozier has been sidelined in the NBA, stuck in limbo as the feds built these cases in America, Antonio Blakeney continues to play basketball. He played another season in China, this time for the Nanjing Monkey Kings, because again, there was no punishment for the players in Yao Ming's whole playoff scandal that he oversaw. And then again, these past two seasons, Antonio Blakeney's been in the EuroLeague. He's in fact back in Israel, where the International Basketball Federation, aka FIBA, they're not doing a lot of oversight, I guess, But all of this means he is continuing to exist under the radar while facing that one now unsealed charge. And possibly, according to the sources you've spoken to, possibly whispering into the ears of the federal government in order to evade further charges. And so, I mean, I need to say here that we have been trying and trying and trying to ask Antonio Blakeney, are you co-conspirator number one? Are you somebody who was considered cooperating with the federal government? How does any of this make sense? We've asked international reporters covering his games. We've asked people who are in Israel. We've asked people who would go on the road in Lithuania. But a funny thing keeps happening when it comes to Antonio Blakeney's ongoing career in basketball and, allegedly, in crime. Because Antonio Blakeney is currently scoring 12.5 points a game for Hapoel Tel Aviv, whose coach has said he has, quote, full trust in the star he calls AB. We have no concerns in regards of the integrity, commitment, and the sport ethic that AB has. Except we are also told that ever since the death, taxes, and Chinese basketball indictment rained down upon NCAA basketball last month out of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Antonio Blakeney keeps dodging media availability, which ostensibly comes with a fine. Except Topo El Tel Aviv tells us that the team hasn't been fined at all and that Blakeney, whose attorney has yet to enter an initial plea and again declined to comment in response to our detailed list of questions, is not available to talk to us. But we here at Pabla Torre finds out have now finally confirmed, this according to law enforcement officials familiar with the situation, that former LSU star and Chicago Bulls journeyman Antonio Blakeney is in fact co-conspirator number one. the unnamed NBA player in Operation Nothing But Bet, the U.S. government's initial indictment on the world of NBA gambling. Now, spokespeople for the U.S. Attorney's Office in both the Eastern District of New York and in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania declined to comment. But this only further raises questions to me about how inside information becomes currency, especially when the men accused of corrupting the integrity and ethics of American sport are still out here in plain sight. There's some parallels there between him and Shane Hennon. Yo! The constantly kind of Teflon their way out of whatever, doing whatever it takes to stay out of whatever, and at the same time living their lives in a very public way that probably betrays some of the confidence that's required to do what they're doing in order to get out of trouble. And that, to be very clear, is allegedly not Carlito's way, but the Vizzino way? Yeah, the theory of even pressure testing is if your value in this whole scheme, allegedly, is your network and your network is most effectively sold and monetized in public so other people can see all of the cosigns and connections and tagged photos and comments and all of that on social media, why aren't you stopping that while the government is bearing down on you ostensibly for that reason? And that's Sugar Shane at the win. That's Antonio Blakeney still playing basketball. That's all of this stuff. And it raises questions that we cannot definitively answer. But why are the famous people getting the harshest punishments while the key instrumental characters, who are even more central to the scheme but are way more under the radar, why are they continuing to evade being named in such a prominent way? That's the $100,000 question. And so to help answer that question near the end here, we wanted to do one last thing. Because what the Department of Justice now alleges about the timeline of the China scheme that birthed the NBA's gambling nightmare is this. Beginning in or about September of 2022, a group of individuals, quote, the fixers, worked together to recruit and bribe players. But we didn't want to just take the government's start date of September of 2022 at face value. We wanted to find the earliest evidence of Antonio Blakeney transacting with Team Vizino locks. And so we followed the money to one more part of the basketball internet. This looks like a Venmo. Is that a Venmo or PayPal? This is a Venmo. A Venmo. A Venmo profile page for one Marvis Fairley, simply at Marvis hyphen Fairley, with 22 friends. Venmo is worth remembering. It's its own kind of social network. It's also, depending on your own privacy settings, public. If you forgot to turn off those settings. And if you scroll all the way back through the emojis, through the transactions, the memos, the friends, if you go back to 2022, I mean, to that mysterious and unreported and publicly undocumented to date period, this is before Vizino Locks LLC was formed, before the bus with the stripper pole, before the murder charges got dropped. What do you see at Marvis-Fairly doing on Venmo? Marvis Fairly paid Shane Hennen, May 30th, 2022. Flight. Marvis Fairly paid Shane Hennen, June 4th, 2022. Birthday. Marvis Fairley paid Shane Hennon, June 8, 2022, bills. What's the next thing in Marvis Fairley's feed? Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairley, June 12, 2022, pick. I once did this to a friend of mine who worked in government. and we've gone out for drinks and I said, I'll Venmo you my share. What did you caption it? Money laundering. But my Venmo is private. So I just knew it was going to be an inside joke between me and my friend. We've all fallen prey to a version of this before realizing too late, I think, that we shouldn't probably call the transaction that was dinner narcotics, which I have also done. But Antonio Blakeney's Venmo handle, unfortunately, is quite public, or at least it is as of this tape time. And it matches his other social media username. And it continues on, by the way, beyond pick to another payment. Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairley June 23rd, 2022. Bet. Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairley June 23rd, 2022. Bet. Ladies and gentlemen, those are two different transactions. I didn't just reread the same one twice. And look, we can't say for sure was pick a gambling pick on a game. Although we'll point out that the NBA Finals or your Celtics were happening during this time as was the NBA draft. Maybe that's some of the answer. But as we consider what other meanings pick and bet might have, because this is also slang maybe or a joke, there is one more thing we found that might shed some light. It's from the, again, under-documented but very cinematic time period of 2022 into 2023. And we found this one deep in the Vizzino Lock's Instagram Reel tab. Because this is the other trailer for the documentary of Marvis Fairley's admittedly fascinating life. we're inside a condo somewhere Vizino's sitting on a couch and what appears to be Antonio Blakeney standing up holding some money now they're celebrating and Antonio Blakeney's holding cash in front of his face now we're at a club celebrating I'm assuming because he's wearing the same shirt as earlier now we're back at the condo And Blakeney is holding stacks of cash. And he shouts out Vizzino Locks. And then Vizzino grabs his phone and pulls out the betting slip. Can we pause right here? Yes. It's a Caesar Sportsbook betting slip. Enhance. Enhance. Total cost $103,300. Max win $93,909.10. This is at Caesar Sportsbook, Harrah's Gulf Coast. We're looking at game six of the Eastern Conference Finals, Celtics Heat, and of course, this bet was cashed. And this whole question of snitching, right? I gotta say, I like to really take credit for any bit of investigative reporting that we can do. We spent months on all of this stuff. But it's just remarkable that these guys were, they were doing it like Nixon. Yeah. They were taping themselves over and over again. That was the business. The difference is Nixon didn't also have an Instagram account where he was like, hey, look at what my boys got from Watergate. Right? Like, that's the difference. it's not just that they catalog themselves doing all this stuff in incredibly descriptive detail. It's that they broadcast it. Well, this video was posted on June 1st, 2023. This was after Antonio Blakeney's team had been banned by Yao Ming from the Chinese playoffs. This is after the federal government had already said that Team Vizino locks had placed at least $781,300 in bets on NBA and CBA regular season games using inside information over the previous three months. and now if you just want to connect all of the dots here, I mean, look, this house that they're in, continue through the Instagram account. You see, okay, there's some art behind Antonio Blakeney putting the bills up to his face. There's that art in a house that Vizino had tagged a week earlier as a house in Miami. There's another photo that he posted in Miami. That night, the caption is, did a lot of bleep to live this lifestyle. And that photo of him in that shirt, I mean, you may recognize it because it also happens to be quite prominent in his profile. That is a Dan Flash's ass shirt, man. Oh, God. By the way, I mean, like this shirt, this whole story has a remarkably vivid and unforgettable pattern. This is loud in ways that are both a favor to the feds as well as a challenge. Can you sink into this rabbit hole to find all of the clues? Because it's all there waiting for you if you happen to be as addicted to the internet as everybody in this story, including us, apparently is. Inconceivable. This has been Pablo Torre finds out a metal arc media production. And I'll talk to you next time.