The Underworld Podcast - Mafia NBA Gambling Rings & The Louvre Robbery: A Thanksgiving Special

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

In this special Thanksgiving episode, the guys are in the studio together and do a deep dive on the insane Louvre Heist of the French Crown Jewels. They also get to the bottom of the Mafia rigged poker games and the absolutely insane NBA gambling scandal that rocked professional sports recently. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Welcome back to the annual world podcast, a journey into international, sometimes historical, organized crime, hosted by two journalists who have reported on this stuff all over the world. Myself Danny Gold and my co-host, Sean Williams, who for the first time ever is joining us here from Spotify Studios in New York. York. I mean, not bad, right? Like the free snacks, you know, there's a coffee bar. Everything's legit. But you got to admit, like, it's very bright here, you know? Like, and my eyes get dry and I'm, like, the sunglasses make sense. Don't you wish you had a pair of sunglasses right now?

I mean, look, if someone's going to give me free nachos and coffee, they could blind me. They could blind me, they could poke my eyes out. And I'll still just sit there drinking the free cold brew all day and say thank you. You know, I did it for the last episode. but for this one, I just, I got a, my eyes hurt, dude. Yeah. And yeah, guys, this is our special sort of Thanksgiving episode, which means that you did not hear a cold open, and we're gonna kind of do it like we do our stash houses,

where we go through a couple of big stories. Luckily, there are some huge ones that have been on the radar that people have been telling us to do for a while. We tend to not jump on stuff right when it's in the new cycle, because I think it's just a lot of people speculating and making stuff up, which we, you know, do sometimes, but like not for a full episode. But right now, we're going to talk to you guys about the Louvre robbery,

which everyone has been clamoring about us to do, and the NBA gambling mafioso stuff, which is just, you know, I mean, that's classic. That's the kind of stuff we love. And I think we might talk about the insane police raid slash battle that killed something like 150 people in one day in Brazil, if we have time. But, yeah, we'll see what happens.

As always, you can get bonus episodes at patreon. slash Enworld Podcast or sign up right here on Spotify or on iTunes. They also make the episodes, episodes add free and help support us and keep us going. You can also choose just to throw us $3 a month to support, keep us going. Why not? Email us at the Underworld Podcast.g.m.com. And for the holiday season, Black Friday, all that. There's a sale on our merch, the shirts, the hats, everything, the hoodies at UnderworldPod.

com. Click on the merch thing there. Why not buy something special for your loved ones or for, you know, co-defendants? especially if social media is the reason you are all on trial. Sean, do you want to start us off? Yeah, I'll kick off. Let's go to the L'Uvre. Because I think what everyone wants to know is,

you know, like, how all British people when they're in America claim that they did a bit of French at school and they like bang on about it. Well, we're going to see just how good mine is. Because I'm going to talk about the heist in Paris, which took place last month on October 19. There's like been a whole bunch of intrigue about this whole affair, But here is kind of a rundown of what actually happened. Yeah, I mean, I was making a lot of jokes right off the bat about waiting to hear what

Mountain Town in Montenegro, the perpetrators were from this whole time, but that ended up not being the case, which is super interesting. That's why you wait to do an episode on it till everyone has stopped caring, and we can't capitalize on all the public fervor. I tell you what people should do. They should not read any newspaper or magazine article that calls this the Pink Panther style robbery. That's what I was saying.

Because that means you're going to read one paragraph about this and 10 paragraphs about the Pink Panthers. Just read about the Pink Panthers. They're really cool. Did we do a show about it? We've done. We've done a show, right? Yeah, we did a show on that.

Maybe an episode or two on them. Yeah, they are very, very interesting. But this is not them. So everything begins around 9.30 a.m. on the 19th of October, which is a Sunday. So it's 30 minutes after the museum is open to visitors. Nice sunny day in Paris. A small team of men wearing high-vis

jackets, pitch up beside a part of the huge complex called the... Okay, right, here's going to be the first test. The Gallery de Apollon. The Gallery of Apollo, a grand gilded wing built in the 1660s. He just smiled and smirked and even say anything to that. There's a reason... I can't know. There's a reason that the Crims have chosen this particular spot.

One, it's got a balcony on the first floor and where they can just like extend a furniture lift and easily make their way. to the window. And second, this place is holding some seriously fancy stuff. It is the home of the French crown jewels, which I got to admit, I thought only we had them. I didn't know there was a thing called the French crown jewels, a cornucopia of crowns, jewelry and other items going back to the days of the French monarchy, which in case you don't know, abolished in pretty spectacular head cleaving fashion in the late 1700s, restored in a different form and then abolished all together in 1870. That is, that's the Rogan version of the history anyway.

there's probably like 100-part podcast on the history of France that you guys can head to anyway. These guys hop onto the balcony and use disc cutters to break into a window of the gallery. Before they threaten staff with power tools and then they seize nine pieces of like priceless jewelry by smashing into the display cases. This hall includes tiara's necklaces and earrings worth over $100 million. But yeah, they are priceless, right? They're historical artifacts. They head back to the furniture lift, head down to ground level, and then speed off with two other gang members on scooters.

One of them actually drops one of his pieces of loot, which is an 1855 Queen Consul's Crown, which is gold, of course, and encrusted with diamonds and emeralds. Bear that in mind next time you drop your phone, it could always always be worse. Yeah, I mean, the whole thing with this stuff that's always interesting to me is, like, who do you move it to? You know, like, are they going to, it's gold, diamonds, emeralds?

Maybe you could break it down. It still be super valuable, though it loses some of that historical relevance, but like, who is buying this? Is it Russian oligarchs? Is it, is it, is it Sheikh? Like, it's got to be something crown prince, something along those lines, right? It's got to be, I feel like, who else could it be besides those two? Yeah, I'm just going to say Russia, because it sounds like the most likely thing. But I would also say that, like, you know, how does it work in this? Is this like a special order thing? Like, you're, are you going to risk doing this if you're supposed to sell to one of those groups, not bringing it down, without

having a buyer in mind already? Or is it like special order being like, we want this, can you get this? Or do you decide you're going to take it and then start seeing if you can find a buyer? Like the whole process of how that works before the actual robbery is really what's super intriguing to me. And also like you never read in the news about there must be fences, right? They must be middlemen that's selling this stuff on. You never read about those guys getting captured or anything like that.

There must be like a whole network probably on the dark web, which I know. a huge amount about because I'm really tech savvy. But anyway, the gang, they hop on these kind of these scooters and then and then they speed along the banks of the river Sen, but they're on scooters, right? It's not quite as thrilling as that scene out of Ronin. And then they take a major freeway south of the city and get out of town. The whole thing, the whole thing, right, from start to finish is over in eight minutes. 9.38 a.m. this is. I say scooters, by the way. These things are actually Yamaha T-MAXs. Kind of like, I think they called them maxi scooters in France.

They can do 100 mile per hour. Like, they're the kind of thing. I don't know if you've ever got picked up by a motor taxi rider in Paris. It's pretty cool. In Paris, but all over, like, Thailand and places like that. But I guess those are more scooters. But these are like big things. Yeah.

I once went on a press trip all the way from the Middle East to Paris, forgot my passport, and the company that had sent me out on this crappy junket. had to then send me all the way across Paris and back again to the airport just to pick up my passport that was in a cafe. And then I missed my flight to Toulouse, which was the whole point of the press trip. What was the point of the story? Were you doing it on one of those motorcycles? Yeah, yeah. You should leave with that. It was really cool. It was really cool, actually. So, yeah, I'm a fan of these things, although not quite as much of a fan as the guy we're going to find out about in a minute. Anyway, the cops know they're dealing with professionals here. They got high-vis jackets. That's how you know.

In fact, the police do so in press statements, they're a bit like cucky. They say these guys are like super professional. And they also call them non-violent, which is a, I think these guys like held up a bunch of security guards with power tools, which is not non-violent, by the way. That is actually, that's not CJNG, but I think that's technically the terms for armed robbery. Anyway, what they don't admit is quite how terrible the Looves security systems had been. So, for instance, the museum had been pondering the security update since 2018, but it had prioritised buying new art, which I guess you would do as a museum. The only camera outside the gallery d'Opaulant had been facing in the opposite direction to where the raid had taken place, which I don't understand because that would kind of be the road. Anyway, and according to an insider who then testifies, it speaks to the media, I think, the password to the Louvre's video surveillance system was Louvre.

which is not great. So this is all very embarrassing. Not very in French just to let someone walk into your country and steal stuff and do terrible things. Oh wait. And then France gets 60 and then 100 people on the case. You do not go after a European country's stolen shiny stuff, Danny. It makes us very, very angry. Six days later on October 25th, one man is arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport trying to leave on a flight to Algeria. He seems to have led cops to a second man who is arrested at his home in Oberville, which is a Paris suburb. According to cops, the pair then part confessed to the crimes.

I guess they won't admit they drop the crown. I don't know. They also admit to be in party to, okay, here we go. This is my French. Voire en bonn organized gang theft. How was that? That sounds like French? Maybe Canadian French, I don't know.

Four days later, on October 29, cops arrested. four more people, they let three of them go, and they hold one, which means that according to them, there is one more gang member at large. We do know a little about the first two men that were caught. One is a 34-year-old Algerian National who's lived in France since 2010 and has worked in garbage collection and delivery and also has a police record for theft and traffic violations. The second guy, the one caught at his home, he's a bit fruitier. He's 39, his French name of Abdulai has several charges, including aggravated frift. He's also a quote, minor social media star, which I think he means he has a few thousand

followers. He's known as Doodoo. He's known as Doodoo Cross Bittu Me. Hey, hey, doodoo. He basically, so Doodoo Cross Bitumee, which is, yeah, I think it's to do a motocross. He basically makes really boring videos about weightlifting and riding his motorbike. Oh, and he does videos on the Yamaha. which is, I don't know, what do we tell people on this show?

Like, do not ride the same bike as you do crimes with on social media. And yeah, these guys are hot, apparently. Like, how hot, 10? Smoke shots, dude. But you should also know, like, it's super weird. They appear to be relative amateurs. You know, like, when I first heard this, of course, Pink Panthers, first thing, or some sort of collective group like that, you know, a bunch of Serb or Albanian experts who

are Montenegrin or like who are adept at this and have done it plenty of times before. These guys are not that, which makes me suspicious, as does I think what you're about to tell us as well. Yeah. Well, I mean, big news is, and the thing that's going to piss the police off is that the jewels haven't been found yet. You've got to surely think that this way down the line that they're gone. says the prosecutor, says a prosecutor, sorry, a brief news conference called L'Ore Beckerot. That's a crazy name. U-A-U, how can you have a name with that?

The jewels are not in our possession as I speak to you. I want to hold on to the hope that they will be found and can be returned to the Louvre Museum and more broadly to the nation. So, yeah, if I'm going to go ahead and just speculate. Yeah, please do. Without any other evidence. it makes it seem like these are like fall guys. Like maybe, it's proven that they were,

they were involved in the actual heist. Yeah. Right. So they have that, I guess they have that. But like, were they trained? Are they the fall guys for somebody else? Is this exactly what's supposed to happen? They're supposed to take the fall and someone else is supposed to get free.

Like, I hate to be someone who spec- I mean, we're speculating on crime here. We're not speculating on, like, weirdo government conspiracies. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, that makes me think that, that, like, maybe they are fall guys or something like that because it does seem like pretty big. hit for a couple of amateurs to do.

Yeah, I mean, like, judging from their, from their backgrounds and where they get picked up, they're not rich guys. They're, like, poor guys living in the suburbs, working, like, menial jobs. We did a show a couple years back about French Algerian robbers, actually. There was a whole show that I did about that. And the guys in that show were, like, proper pros. They've been all around the world. They'd actually worked with the Pink Panthers, I think, in one case.

And they were, like, fully wealthy robbers. And this is not that. So these have got to be just the Patsis for some, like, big conspiracy. Because the stuff they took is incredibly valuable. Yeah. But they did it in such an easy way. And they're just, yeah, small-time crooks. Anyway, yeah, the Louvre has since announced a $92 million security plan, which is great.

But actually considering how big it is, like the Louvre, is by country mile, the biggest museum in the world. It's almost four times the floor pan of the Met in New York. I think I've been once and I did like a tiny bit of it and it took me two hours and I got really bored and left. It hasn't been hit much by crime at all. Like it's crazy how little it's been hit by crime. Its most famous highest in inverted commas, I feel like I have to say that, but now I'm like on video in a studio doing it. Came in 1911 when an Italian immigrant who was a former museum employee broke in and then he hid overnight on a Sunday in a broom closet. it. And then the next morning, he walked out with a Mona Lisa covered in a sheet under his arm,

and folks didn't even realize it was gone till the Tuesday. Yeah, that is an incredible move. I mean, that's a Cohen Brothers movie, what going to happen? Yeah, I was wondering why this is in a movie. It probably is somewhere. This guy is called Vincenzo Perugia. He makes it all the way to Florence with the painting, which wasn't as famous back then, apparently, like not a lot of people knew about it. And because he's an Italian patriot, right, he wants to bring it home. He's not just like a common or garden thief. It's three full years before the Mona Lisa heads back to Paris, and Perugia serves a small sentence for his robbery, but actually, he's hailed as a bit of a hero back home. Yeah, I mean, I love this aspect of it. You know, he's like, it's a not

right, it belongs to us. Oh, he busts out the accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very, like, like, like, Silvio, you know, you can see Silvio reading a newspaper at 25 and Bing, like, that's what I'm talking about. Like, you know, like, return one for the, for the Paizans. So very, I kind of love this guy. I mean, maybe, is there a full episode there? I think maybe. I mean, there's definitely a Wes Anderson movie. Like, write a script.

The Louvre, by the way, the Louvre, yeah. Like, it's kind of nuts how Little the Louvre has been looted. It didn't even get sold by the Nazis, right, when France was occupied. So in 1940, when the Germans invade, then museum director, Jacques Jojar. That's a great French name. Organizes for almost 2,000 wooden crates. to be filled with treasures and then sent to locations in the French countryside. And when the Nazis roll into the city, they discover the museum almost entirely empty,

which actually says something pretty dark about the French, but I guess we're not that show. Yeah, Jesus, took me a minute to get that. But you know, with French resistance, you've got to give it up. You know, they held their own? Jean-Moulon, pretty cool guy. So let's give it up for them. You know what kind of show we are, though? Let's give it up for the French resistance. Let's give up for the French resistance. Yeah. Should, send them back to the States right now. What kind of show we are

is the kind of show that find stories a month later that they're in the news and does deep dives on that when people have stopped caring. That's why our audience is so is growing so massively. That and my refusal, despite Sean's insistence

to do episodes on the quote-unquote Biden crime family or the Trump criminal organization. All right, all right, right, right. We're not doing. Let's move on. We will not do episodes on either one of those. We are a real organized crime show.

But yes, talking of stories that were popular a month ago, let's talk about this insane NBA gambling indictments that dropped back on October 23rd, which is just like, I mean, tailor-made for us. Maybe not if I want to get that draft king sponsorship. I was thinking that. But either way.

It's just like, how do we ignore that? 34 people arrested. We got mafiososos involved. Illegal sports betting, point shaving, though it's more like propet shaving, which I'll get into. Injury tip-offs, inside information. and then we have the mob run rigged poker games, all with the involvement of guys

who have literally already made tens of millions of dollars legally the NBA players, which is just, I mean, come on. When this story first drops, everyone is like DMing and messaging us to get on it. What could be more perfect? I mean, it's hard to find a story that is going to appeal to us more,

me specifically, than gambling, mob stuff, point-shaven, cricket poker games. And the things about the story is, it just doesn't end in terms of professional athletes and gambling right now. I don't think it's possible at the feds have like one guy who knows everything, like every scam involved here, and it's just letting them in on everything. It's probably like an interconnected web where one guy will go down,

he'll inform on a bunch of others, and then, you know, one of them will know something new, but it is wild. Either that. And the most likely explanation, though, is that the algorithm for these gambling sites is just too good. Because literally, or the algorithm like watching for, professional athletes and seeing what's happening and noticing patterns.

Because as I'm writing this, another indictment drops on two major league baseball players who just got charged with a lot of conspiracy and fraud counts related to rig bets on specific pitches in baseball games and helping their co-conspirators net a cool $450,000. Now, these co-conspirators, the people betting are actually in the Dominican Republic, like where the baseball players that got caught are from. so it doesn't have the fun mafia angle, but it still seems like there's a new one of these now every few months. And those gambling sites, they do math, man.

Like, they have formulas. Stuff gets too weird. They're going to run snitching to the feds. So be careful. What's up, guys? I want to tell you about something I've been using that is just like changing the game, blowing my mind. It's called wave.co.

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You're clearly, working at. Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus rated PG. Yeah, and these, like, the MLB stuff, these aren't small-time guys, right? These are big starters. They're really good ones. I think Class A is one of the guys involved, right?

He's like a closing picture for the Guardians. He's like the big, he's like an amazing guy. They're making millions of dollars a year. And they're like balking the game off. It's like 12K. Yeah, yeah. And the NBA stuff gets even wilder because the contracts there are way bigger.

But at least with like the first one, which we'll talk about John T. T.m. He was a scrub. He had some issues. Toronto Life magazine, actually, the fantastic article on him. But he was, you know,

two or three points a game. Which again... He should come to Australia and New Zealand. They have loads of guys like that. Yeah. That's their entire league. You're doing three points a game and people are betting

significant amounts of money. Like, they're going to get tipped off. Be smarter. Anyway, for those who don't know, a lot of the bets here, we're talking about prop bets, which could be on anything, but they're usually specific bets on like a player's stat.

So baseball, what kind of pitch he'll throw? We're not betting on who's going to win the game, although that did happen in some of these. You're betting on what kind of pitches he's going to throw. Basketball, like how many points, rebounds or assist the guys getting in that particular game. Things that a single person, if on the take, can pretty much ensure happens as opposed to like winning or losing a game.

Yeah, and for people outside the States, we call it spot betting. So it's like tiny little minutia within a game, right? So like if in cricket, like I did that story a couple years back, it's like, he's going to bowl a wide. He's going to bowl no ball or whatever. And like you can bet on individual deliveries. And it doesn't have to be stats when you're talking pro bets. I mean, there used to be stuff where like for the Super Bowl, like how long will the national anthem go? Will it be over and under?

Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. It's a favorite bet of mine. But they actually maximize that at like 200. You can bet on it. But it's a great.

It's a great bet. Now, this NBA scandal drops three weeks ago. It's actually two separate scandals that came together in this one massive reveal. Both old school, people love to ask, like, what does the mob still do? It does this stuff, which is classic. I want to ask you a question about that further doubt, actually, is really interesting. The first starts way back in 2019, and it's the poker con. And it's pretty straightforward.

It involves ripping suckers off and using NBA players as celebrities to kind of help do it. And it involves four of New York's five mafia families. The Lucases, the Genovases, the Gambinos, and the Bonados. I mean, the Colombo's must have been asleep at the wheel or doing something different because this seems like easy, easy money. What it is, the mob has these high roller poker games, mostly in New York City, some in the Hamptons, maybe Vegas, maybe Miami. They run them.

Now, underground poker rooms, they've been huge in New York City, I think, forever. I remember back in the day, like a few years after Rounders came out, poker stars and party poker where all the rage, I got dragged to a few of them in New York City. They were in like in office buildings in Midtown that were a band, like not a band name, but like vacant or apartments in like Murray Hill. You know, I was going to relatively low stakes ones. But very professionally run, someone was making money and organizing. These sort of mob on poker games, they're all over.

So just to be clear, like, this isn't online. It's in real life. They're kind of like, are these the kind of backroom poker games that you would see in the movies? And you went? Like a kid with a with a balaclava on and a, and a. shotgun kind of turn up and turn you over? No, no, because they're controlled by the mob, which is a real, like, I think someone they've gotten a rob before, and it's a plot point on the Sopranos.

Yeah. But, um, but like, that's why the mob runs them, because there's money and because there's a lot of cash involved, and they can, they can protect that, that money. But, I mean, the ones I went to, like, you feel cool going, but I don't think they're like the most badass thing. I was going to, I was going to jump in the name of the kid who robs the poker game in the Sopranos. So, like, this is the one plot got, it's the one plot point I can actually contribute to.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's the young kid. Bevalocca shoots Christopher. Who robs the game? It's the son. It's the son. It's the son of one of the kids.

Tony and crew make their bones originally by robbing a high price. Jackie Jr. Yes. Jackie Jr. does it. And the plot point is that Tony robs one of the poker games. But these ones that we're talking about, these are high-stake ones, like Tony's with Frank Sinatra Jr., if you remember. Tens of thousands of dollars usually to buy in, big money bets. And the normal way they make money on this is they get the rake.

which is the small fee, usually 2.5, maybe 5% for every pot. So every time there's a hand of poker, it doesn't matter who wins. They're taking that little small fee out. It's valuable, especially with high stakes games. And one of the reasons, like I said, organized crime is just involved is because you have a lot of cash floating around. So they're easy targets for robberies, especially because it's illegal, so you can't really call the cops.

These mobsters, they don't just want those nice crumbs. They want more, and they seem easy way to do that. And the way to do that is they rig it, like with Looney Tunes ass, back of a magazine, inspector gadget type things. We're talking the kind of thing somebody in a sitcom in the 90s would use the cheat on test. X-ray rigged card table so you can see what the cards are. Poker trays with hitting cameras. Rigged card shuffling machines, which they supposedly robbed somebody to get.

I guess they were like a hard thing to develop. And my favorite, some sort of like tricked out contact lens that allows the person wearing it to see hitting markings on the card, which again, just amazing stuff. Here's how one outlet broke it down, quote. The orchestrators also used electronic poker chip trays that could secretly read cards placed on the table, card analyzers with decoy cell phones that could surreptitiously detect which cards were on the table and playing cards with markers visible only to players wearing specifically designed contact lenses or sunglasses.

So that is when you started wearing sunglasses indoors, yeah? People do that at poker table so you can't see their eyes. I feel like that's such a rinse. Like why do they allow people to wear sunglasses in these pro poker games? That's the whole point of the game. You can't read their eyes. People wear the visors. That's like the only, yeah, I don't get it.

Maybe their eyes get dry and they're tired of the bright lights. It's understandable. And they had a group of planted players, obviously, who would use these advantages, exchanging the information they were getting from the gadgets with like midgame text, which surprised me that you can still use phones at these games. And secret hand signals to kind of. to cheat the big fish that came through. And they did this the tune of at least $7 million over five or so years. So not bad. One mark apparently lost $1.2 million. And the feds had been on it

for something like three to four years apparently and called the Operation Royal Flush. Right. Okay. So this would be like pretty cool if you're a cop, I guess, to watch all these games and then you kind of know all the little ticks and things that are going on. Fun assignment to do. Unfortunately, I mean, I'm not a basketball guy, so watching a thousand hours of basketball would be, I don't know. I wouldn't wish that one, even the guy who stole my girlfriend in high school. But yeah, that would be a kind of cool job. It's been a sting of this size.

It's one thing to do for Fed besides, like, pretending to be someone on Instagram, pretending to be a 19-year-old, like, hot Puerto Rican chick on Instagram, DMing drug dealers, like, get information, which is probably what most sides are doing right now. It works. It works. Does it? Yeah. I mean, that's my favorite, that's my favorite, like, riff. I've been doing that for years about, like, you know,

some 55-year-old Italian guy named Frank, Frank Ginzenzo, who has to pretend to be like a 19-year-old woman on Instagram, like DMing these guys and just getting them to give up their entire operation, which is what happens. So here's where it gets more fun, right? Two NBA players slash one kind of coach who was a player were involved in the games and were in on it, and they were what's known as face cards for their celebrity status,

meaning they were used to get people to come in to play the games to lure them in, these big players, which like, okay, Chauncey Billups, like I know that name. That's a known dude. All-Star Hall of Famer. I remember him in college. I was on the Knicks for a minute, current head coach. But Damien Jones, really?

Like, I don't think anyone is bragging to their friends about some assistant coach to the Lakers or a journeyman point guard who got six points a game. But apparently that was the case. Billups wasn't just a pretty face, too. According to some of the reports, he was also allegedly involved in the cheating teams and used to win big at the table. And also everything here just have to put alleged. Everything is alleged by the federal government.

No one here for these charges at least has been found guilty. Also with Chaunty, keep in mind, my man had a cumulative NBA salary that totaled over $106 million and was getting around $5 million per year for his current job coaching the Portland Trailblazers. I mean, he is doing this for the love of the game. And by game, I don't mean basketball. I mean scamming and cheating suckers. allegedly allegedly allegedly and how wild is it this happens like the first like this this whole thing

happens the indictments everything drops like the first or what's it second day of the season i mean the feds are really sending a message to professional athletes with this one man they are not liking all the current gambling controversies so that's that's the poker one and they had a lot of people involved in that i think it was something like 31 co-conspirators co-conspirators on that charge very multi-racial group based on the names, a Chinese guy, a guy named Albanian Bruce, a couple of solid nicknames like Tommy Juice, and now mob guys, I think there were 13 total alleged members and associates of four of the five families overall in the indictments. I think 11 of them on this one, which is wild, you know?

So this, I mean, first of all, Albanian Bruce is like top tier. That's so good. But also I was speaking to Chris Dalby, like a couple weeks ago for the Patreon, and he was saying, like this kind of conversely shows how weak the mob is in New York at the moment, like their traditional revenue streams have kind of gone down the story. So they're like doing stuff like this. So like it's surprising almost to see these kind of family names pop up in such a high profile thing because they've fallen in stature so much to other cartels and movements, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're still getting money, but the stuff they used to do is harder,

harder to do. But there's still like the waste management stuff as we're about to find out. So six people in total busted for the second indictment, which we'll get to. I think three on both, one of which was Damon Jones. He's charged on both. And Chauncey Billups is mentioned not by name, like anonymously in the second one,

which is weird. You can tell it's him, though he's not charged, which is interesting, and I'll get to that as well. Now, the mob guys, they set this up, but they aren't just used for the setup.

They also came in for collecting the debts that some of the poker players acquired, threats, intimidation, all that. And I assume making even more money with juice loans to the players who hit bad beats, which again, I don't know that, that's speculation. One of the mobsters indicted, I actually recognized the name right off the bat,

Nicholas Fat Nick Manucci, who's a gambling associate and infamous in New York, because in 2005, he was involved in an assault where he beat up a black kid with a bat in Howard Beach, which is a notoriously kind of mobbed up heavy Italian neighborhood that is not known to be super welcoming to certain other residents in New York City. In fact, the one reason this incident got a ton of press at the time

because back in the 80s, a black guy was killed by a mob in Howard Beach. And in this incident, the guy Fatnik beat over the head was in Howard Beach and he called him the N-word and said he did it because the guy was trying to steal cars, which I think the guy admitted, but, you know, shouting the N-word when he does it, the defense doesn't really work out and he got charged with a hate crime and found guilty.

It's a little piece of New York City lore there. I think part of Fatnik's defense was that he was a big rap music fan and, like, said the word, he did have multiracial fans. The actual self-pocket. I didn't have time to go too deep into it, but there's some interesting articles on that, but he did serve his term. I think he got out maybe five or six years ago and then was caught up in this one. Another guy, Joseph Lonnie, otherwise known as Brooklyn Joe or Mamino, had literally just a week earlier,

pled guilty system charges involving a waste management consultant, so they're still in the game. I kid you not, from the Post, quote, The New York Post, Gray's newspaper in America, Lani's arrest occurred less than a week after he pleaded guilty October 17th alongside six other reputed wise guys to heading a sprawling racket that used extortion, witness retaliation, and other crimes to try to bring the city's trash and demolition business under his control, prosecutors said at the time. Just for people outside of New York, like where is Howard Beach? I don't really know where they're.

It's like deep queens. Oh, okay, okay. Like way out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think it's near like on the way to Rockaway, like southwestern portion of Queens. So not southeast, like closer, like southwest. But yeah, yeah, you wouldn't go there if you're like a tourist, you know?

Nice neighborhood, though. So this guy, Joseph seems like quite a character. More on his background from the post, quote, in addition, Lani and alleged goon, Vincent Vinnie Slick, incredible, you know, great, a classic nickname, Damon Squero, got into a wild confrontation with the married owners of a restaurant in Thomas River, New Jersey in September 2020,

after the couple asked them to leave for getting into an argument with patrons. Things reached a fever pitch when Lonnie and his crony threatened to burn down the establishment, quote, with you in it, and allegedly beat the couple up later that night, court papers alleged. The mobbed-up duel allegedly went so far as to buy a gas container at a station across the street from the restaurant, there's photos of this, to make good on the threat.

But they returned the container afterward, the feds claimed. They were not charged in that incident. Yeah, I wonder why. Yeah. So don't go into debt at high sticks poker game listeners. Like, the guys are still out there and they'll still do some things. Okay. So second big indictment, six people, like I said.

And this is the one that really messes with professional sports in the NBA and the gambling because it messes with the sanctity of the game. Now, it's not the first time. this has happened, but it's pretty big, because this is players and coaches either deliberately playing poorly to rig their prop bets or letting betters know inside information about injuries before it's public, and it involves big names. So they can bet on who is going to win or the point spread before the injury information becomes public and the odds change.

Sean, like, as a non-better, do you understand this? Yeah, I mean, it's just insider trading, right? Like, it's, like, when I put my podcast millions into, like, Lucky Martin, and I make sure that I call my friend the CEO to find out when he's dropping a XF 35. Like, I do it all the time. Here's the thing, don't joke about that, because they take this stuff seriously. Uh-oh. Yeah, allegedly. Can I say allegedly? I don't know if you can.

I mean, you've admitting to yourself. And we're not going to get that lucky Martin, do it. I mean, we have seen scandals like this before. Obviously, the most famous one was the Black Sox scandal in 1990. Yes. Point shaming in college games was a big thing. The infamous, like I said, Black Sox scandal. Even an NBA ref, Tim Donagie in 2007, he was passing insider info to

betters and like changing calls based on um you know the odds that was a huge scandal i think he was in debt to the mob too or debt in debt in general which is why he did it now this current scheme lasts for like a year and a half i think it was one of only only a handful of games that were bet on but that's all you need to do to do it right baby and terry rosier is involved in the scandal which is crazy because this is an active player who is an all-star or was an all-star who was making 25 million dollars a year in 2025, or he was supposed to, like he was an all-star, what, three or four seasons ago? And the made incident people are talking about, I mean, is just wild. It's a game on March 23rd, 2023. And Rozier tells a childhood friend to bet on all his unders because he's going to take

himself out of the game early on in the first quarter due to a supposed injury. I mean, Sean, do you understand this? Like, he tells this childhood friend, like, I'm going to play 20% of the game, bet against me doing anything or hitting my points or rebounds or assists. And his childhood friend then sells it to some co-conspirators for, I think, 2,500. It might be a little more. I mean, just like, come on, man. I mean, yeah, when I was in my early 20s and playing football, you know, if you had a few beers the night before, you might be like, oh, shit, I've gone down.

I've done my ankle, but I was never good enough to make any money off of it. It was like, was anyone banning on your record? Yeah. If they were, they were extremely sad. But, I mean, why doesn't he just give his friend money? give your friend the money. I mean, that's the question we're all asking. God. So, quote, the Charlotte Hornets were preparing for a face-off against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 23, 2023, and Terry Rozier at a plan. Rosier at a time a starter for the Hornets

told De Niro Laster, a childhood friend, that he was going to prematurely remove himself from the game in the first quarter due to a supposed injury and not returned to play further. Lester turned around and sold the tip about Rozier's intentions to other defendants and co-conspirators, giving them a chance to place fraudulent wagers based on the non-public information, and prosecutors say. Razir was true to his word. They said, playing roughly nine minutes and 34 seconds before taking himself out of the game, the bets raked in thousands of dollars.

Now, I actually have some new information about all this that I'm going to get to on the end. So if you know all this already, just bear with me because I think that stuff I have to talk about, it's actually pretty interesting. According to the site, the ringer, quote, the verbiage in the documents makes it sound like Rosier was just trying to help his good friend make an easy buck on some bets. Definitely illegal, but it was Laster who compounded the issue by further disseminating the information, and that they say that's the case likely to be

made by Rozier's lawyers, which I mean, like, his home, if this was done without his permission, like, could have really screwed him even further? Like, it's worth wondering, maybe the childhood friend had just made the bets himself and not say anything. They'd get away with it, but who knows? And the NBA investigated this itself in 2023, that specific incident and cleared him. And like I said, Rosier makes tens of millions of dollars, and he's earned 160,000. million over 11 years as a pro so far. It's just like insanely rich people betting literally everything for a few grand. I genuinely don't get it.

Hustle all the game, baby. They're in it for the love of the game. Oh, my God. Do we have to say another allegedly at this point? I feel like we've said a lot with that allegedly, yeah. Everything is alleged in this situation. Now, Chaunty Billups, like I said, is not named this indictment, though he's definitely described in it, which makes one wonder why he isn't also charge.

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And this brings up one of my favorite things about these scandals, the surfacing of old tweets that called this stuff out before it's known. There's definitely one about Rozier when he made some really awful place in a game, and this one from last year, which came after Terry was investigated, Rozier was investigated and cleared by the NBA itself, but way before these new charges dropped. Quote, If Terry Rozier is being investigated,

Chauncey Billups needs to be as well. Denny Abdija, who incredible play for the Trailblazers All-Star, has played 35, 39, 34, 38, and 38 minutes and five of his last six. And the other, he played 26, which was also conveniently against the magic. Billups clearly deciding to bet the under on him first, Orlando.

And that's someone wondering why Chaunty Billups is benching one of his star players for no reason. And I got to say, Billups, since he got pulled after the first game this season, or maybe it was right before, is putting up like 30 points game this season. So, you know, something, Denny, Denny's doing, hitting it. So something was up.

Another outlet mentioned a different game saying, quote, Billups also allegedly leaked secret information to gamblers that the Portland Trailblazers were planning to tank a March 24th, 2023 game against the Chicago Bulls, a tip off that netted the betters big winnings, the court papers claim. Again, they see. is a weird thing to say there's been some mixed up with some of the outlets saying this sometimes they

say each of the each of the three players has been accused of being involved in both incidents but like i said the only one named um in this one is rosier and jones is not named here uh and and jones is the only one named in both in diamonds so that's you know the other thing these guys were doing letting co-conspirators know inside info about other people and teams it's got to be nigh on impossible to stamp this stuff out altogether, right? Like how? Dude, I don't know. So that's the thing. They're pretty good at finding it, you know? Because like everything is formulas and algorithms. The betting sites have all this stuff down. There's other independent agencies that monitor their stuff. And if you're seeing abnormal bets all the time, they're going to start flagging it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people do flag this stuff. And it's wild,

like how amazing they are at flag. Of course, I'm sure some of it's going undetected. If guys are slicker. These guys and the betters were not slicker. But like, they're very good at catching this stuff. There's an amazing Twitter account that I follow that's just this like French guy that talks about like weird bets happening at the end of like games and like soccer games in Kazakhstan. And then when you watch back through the video, it's basically like a goalkeeper just throwing the ball in a net in the 95th minute. Oh yeah. That's why. Yeah. It's done. So you may have seen LeBron James's name brought up on this stuff, which again is monumental. And that's because Damon Jones, who was sort of like an unofficial assistant to the Lakers at the time,

also a pro who, like I said, four or five points a game, six points a game, once leaked to a better that he was likely going to be out for a game before it was public knowledge. They had his text and he's texting them big on the bucks. People, they can get your text. These days you're almost better off just saying it on the phone. Like, I kind of feel like he got $2,500 for that tip. That's what I saw. I keep seeing $2,500.

It could be more than that. So, yeah, LeBron's sitting out, of course. that really changes the game, and that's good info to have if you're betting and nobody else has it. Apparently, he did this once again with another star player, but that player actually ends up playing

in the game and the betters lost. So if I was engaging in this sort of entire training, that's what would happen to me. I would get the tip off being like, yo, he's sitting out. Because that's how my stock and gambling tips go, basically. And then he would play, and I would lose anyway. This happened with the MLB thing, right?

I think it was like one of Class A's pitches. With Vulpey, right? And the guy, like, swings for it. It's a strike. Even though it's like a mile outside of the strike. Yeah, yeah, I think it was Volpey. And like, you could see him visibly getting upset on the mound that Volpey's just striking out so easily.

I think that's what I saw. I don't remember that exactly, but I think that's what it is. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty hilarious. Now, where does this stuff all stem from? Like I said, how do the feds crack this sort of stuff? And with the gambling props and all that, like I said, there's formulas, there's algorithms. But apparently the poker stuff was a known scam.

The ringer has some interesting info about a poker player who knew the deal a couple of years ago, quote, In 2023, Matt Berkey, the founder of Solfer Why, a poker training academy, recounted a story on his podcast about a series of poker games played in 2019, all built around Chauncey Billups. Berkey was told about the game that it was legit. One scan the list of the people involved was enough for Berkey to call that bluff.

I had some friends who went and played in L.A. and in Vegas, and it obviously was for sure confirmed to be cheated. People who clearly didn't even know the rules of no limit. Hold them are jamming hundreds of big blinds in with a gutty, as a type of hand and just drilling it, like a hard-to-win hand. Only the pros are losing. So some people knew. So the poker thing was out, right?

Now, there was a much smaller NBA gambling scandal a few years ago, I think 2023 with Jonte Porter, who's a very inconsequential player, but the brother of Brooklyn Net superstar and beloved podcast guest, not ours, but in general, Michael Porter, because he says outrageous stuff. He actually, Jonte, got up in gambling. He was an addict and owed a ton of time. money and wasn't a guy who was earning a ton either. Some of the guys he owed, they encouraged him to do a quote unquote special, which basically means intentionally leaving the game early

so they could bet his unders, like what happened with, um, with Rozier. From Toronto Life Magazine, quote, an encrypted message is obtained by investigators, Porter acknowledged the plan even joking darkly about the consequences if he failed to pay back $8,000. You're coming to Toronto to beat me up. So there's a fantastic article in Toronto Life magazine about all the stuff that I think came out in May, so it wasn't about the current scandal, but as we'll see, it has some relations to it. Porter owed the money to a guy named Amar Awada,

a gambler from either Brooklyn or Staten Island. He's the one who convinced them to do the special, and then him and his friends made insane bets on Michael Porter Unders. I'm sorry, Jonte Porter Unders, the insane bet, these insane bets to win tons of money. Here's Toronto Life magazine on his whole crew. Awada allegedly looped in Longfee, Bruce Fam, and Shane Hennon. Pham was a 38-year-old Vietnamese-American in Queens

who claimed to be in the top 1% of poker players in the world. While Pham had never been convicted of a crime, prosecutors alleged that he organized underground poker games. Henan was a serial criminal based in Las Vegas, who, in addition to being convicted for a cocaine distribution, had stabbed a man nearly to death with a box cutter in a 2009 bar fight. Since at least 2020, Henan had found a new life as a professional gambler and influencer going by Sugar Shane.

He sold what he called executive exclusive plays, essentially bets with good odds for a minimum of $99 a piece. Those are all scams don't do that. Other poker players had accused both Famine Hennon of fixing several high-state games in LA in 2023. Also in on the Porter scheme were Timothy McCormick of New York and Mahmoud Mala of Landisil, Pennsylvania. I mean, we've done like a dozen episodes of Australia and we've never had a double

Bruce situation. And here we are. Anyway, these guys, kind of dummies. They were making ridiculous bets on a player no one knows who gets five minutes a game, they want a ton of money, like a million dollars in some of these bets on insane parlayes, they all got flagged and then arrested. And the reason I bring this up, two of the guys busted here in that Porter case, which again is unrelated technically to the two cases we're hearing about now, including the ringleader Amar Awada, they're also on these new indictments.

Which is interesting. So maybe someone is talking or someone had all this info that they got on their phones when they got picked up the first time, either way, it's going to be crazy to see how this all plays out. And now, I have a hot take for you, Sheld. A hot take. I think you should be allowed to defraud gaming apps. You know why, Sean? Why? Why is that? Because the house always wins. You play long enough, no matter what happens, the house always wins. And if they need to, they'll defraud you. They'll keep your money. Right. So that betting, that betting ad, that's definitely, Oh, no. Oh, no.

I, but you know, it's a lot of fun. Just like you and your buds throwing $3 on a parlay every football Sunday, having a great time. There's no better way to bond with your male friends. And or your, I do with my brothers every Sunday. Know nothing about football. Do all their bets. Not with dollar bills with your friends. There's no better way to have a great time than throwing $4 on first touchdown score,

seven first touchdown scores and just, it just makes the game a lot of fun, which you could do it. any betting app that is willing to pay us. But yeah, you make crazy enough bets on things like this. It will get flagged, like almost guaranteed. Yeah, yeah. Well, what's the, so don't bet, do bet, do bet, do bet. Depends on whether we're going to get a sponsor for gambling in the next couple of months. Otherwise, live your own life.

Betting's fun. I'm bad at it. I'm bad at it. But, you know, it's a better way. to spend your money than what we did with the Patreon money last Saturday night. Yeah, there are better ways to spend your money. Way better money. There's less shame involved, I would say. Yeah, but the rest of that is classified information.

I think, I mean, I was going to do some stuff about the Brazil raid, but uh, maybe out of time. Yeah, I think we're running out of time. I think I might do a full show as well, because there's some really interesting stuff going on Brazil. That would be a crazy. Yeah. But yeah, that, that raid, 121 people killed the cops.

I think it would be more. Yeah, I think they keep up in the number. But yeah, we'll do that another time. on not a special Thanksgiving episode. Yeah, it's a Thanksgiving episode, you know? Like, we're allowed to have a little fun, talk a little nonsense here. We hope you guys enjoy this. We actually do stuff like this pretty regularly on the Patreon called us Stash houses

where we just kind of go through and shoot the shit about like different crime stories that are in the news, speculate wildly, and just generally be irresponsible. But it's fun because, you know, we let our guard down and it's topical and all that sort of stuff. or as topical as us doing stuff three weeks later, so we can't capitalize on it being in the new cycle, can be. But there's plenty people that you can watch on YouTube doing that nonsense. Anyway, until next week, thank you guys for tuning in as always. Black Friday, UnderworldPod.com, merch, the shirt.

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