From PBS NewsHour.

More than 30 people, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, were charged Thursday in connection with an FBI investigation into mafia-backed gambling and sports rigging schemes.

"This is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years," FBI Director Kash Patel said at a news conference Thursday.

The indictments are related to two major fraud cases, with one centering on illegal gambling and the second involving rigged underground poker games.

One involved six defendants who are accused of participating in one of the "most brazen sports betting schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized" in the United States, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joe Nocella said.

The other involves 31 defendants who allegedly participated in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games that were "backed by Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families of La Cosa Nostra," Nocella said.

"Not only did we crack into the fraud that these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA, but we also entered and executed a system of justice against La Casa Nostra," Patel said.

Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

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