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

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out – Episode: “Co-Conspirator 1: We Investigated the NBA Betting Scandal’s ‘Original Sin’”

Date: February 26, 2026
Host: Pablo Torre (The Athletic)
Guest/Co-host: Amin

Episode Overview

In this immersive “talkumentary,” Pablo Torre and recurring correspondent Amin dissect the tangled networks and origins of the NBA betting scandal—an ongoing case that has rocked both professional and collegiate basketball. The episode pivots from FBI operations and indictments to the shadowy figures at the center of the scandal, revealing how information has become currency in the era of legalized sports gambling. Central to the discussion: the unmasking of the government’s mysterious “Co-Conspirator 1”—ultimately identified as former Chicago Bull and international journeyman Antonio Blakeney—and the anatomy of a global point-shaving operation that began in Chinese basketball before infecting the NBA and NCAA ranks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Origins of the NBA Betting Scandal

• Naming the Investigations:
  • Two major federal probes: “Operation Royal Flush” (focused on poker mob ties) and “Operation Nothing But Bet” (laser-focused on betting and point-shaving).
    • “I hate these naming conventions, but it is helpful for our purposes…” – Pablo (03:02)
• The Multi-Continent Scandal:
  • New indictment by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania links point-shaving not just to the NBA, but also college basketball and Chinese leagues.
    • “Three indictments, three continents… expanding to… Mr. Sugar Shane Hennin.” – Pablo (03:54)
• The Cast of Characters:
  • Spotlight on Shane “Sugar Shane” Hennin, a colorful social media addict, whose circle allegedly placed illegal bets through insider info shared on a group chat.
  • Central NBA player implicated: Jontay Porter, banned for life in 2024 for providing confidential info and manipulating his playing time for bets.
    • “The main characters of this film…” – Pablo (06:02)

Terry Rozier’s Role & Legal Battle

• Rozier Accused:
  • Miami Heat’s Terry Rozier accused of tipping gamblers about his injury timing; faces conspiracy and money laundering charges.
  • Rozier’s defense: never bet on himself, nor knew his injury info would be sold.
    • “His lawyers argue that the government turned a private dispute into…a federal case.” – Amin (07:32)
  • Out on bail, Rozier is contractually and socially isolated.
  • Court case pegged as key test for how player-sourced information fuels illicit betting.

Tracing the Network: From Group Chat to Street-Level Operations

• Broader Investigation Goals:
  • Torres and Amin want to find the true origin of the network and ID the unnamed insiders—particularly “Co-Conspirator 1.”
  • Critique of prosecutorial strategy: Many “dirty hands” (insiders seeking plea deals) deliver up big names for lighter sentences.
    • “You have some people with really dirty hands…” – Pablo (11:32)
  • Legal representation of Rozier and others notably ties back to Trump’s attorneys, illustrating the intersection of sports crime and power.

Meet the Network: The Influence of Sports Betting Social Media

• Marvez “Vezino Locks” Fairley:
  • Betting influencer, former AAU baller, cousin to NBA vet Al Jefferson.
  • On-the-ground visuals: Instagram posts, YouTube-esque hustle reels, and party bus LLCs, all highlighting the bravado and social reach of amateur and pro gambling circles.
    • “This is our year. We’ve been waiting on this. Let’s get some money.” – Promo reel, Vezino Locks (14:09)
• DeNiro “Peso” Laster:
  • Childhood friend of Rozier, former Kentucky linebacker, allegedly served as key conduit for passing inside info (especially Rozier’s injury status) to the betting network.
  • Court filings reference payment trails: Rozier’s “kicks” for Laster’s part in the scheme.

Unmasking “Co-Conspirator 1”: Antonio Blakeney

• Key Clues from the Indictment:
  • Described as: “At times an NBA player…resident of Florida…with deep NBA connections.” (24:45)
  • Timeline of events traces synchronized betting activity across NBA and CBA games, matching Blakeney’s international schedule.
  • Identified via social media, payment apps (public Venmo records), and a close-knit personal/professional network spanning back to his AAU days—and visually, by Instagram posts with Laster and others.
    • “It’s whether he was intimately connected to the codefendants…which brings us all the way back to when Antonio Blakeney was a 17-year-old prospect in high school…” – Pablo (36:16)
• Blakeney’s Career Context:
  • From blue-chip prospect to NBA “cup of coffee” (76 games for Bulls) to prolific international scorer (32 ppg in China, stints in Israel and Bahrain).
  • Early-career and financial instability (no NIL rights, frequent borrowing) cited as both a cautionary tale and potential driver for his involvement in betting schemes.

The “Original Sin”: Point-Shaving in China

• Proof of Concept:
  • The first “fixed” game: March 6, 2023, CBA matchup, with Blakeney underperforming with “fixers” betting nearly $200,000 stateside.
    • “And this, in the grand timeline the federal government has provided, is the real original sin…” – Pablo (56:23)
  • CBA league response far more severe for teams/coaches than players (Yao Ming, then-league president, bans teams but not implicated players).
  • Blakeney soon after allegedly deploys the playbook in NCAA contests via group chats and FaceTime, brokering payments to college players for unders.

Inside Information as Currency

• Network Dynamics & Vulnerability:
  • Analysis of how the NBA/college infosphere lends itself to corruption: Insiders with believability and access (ex-players, friends of stars) monetize privileged data.
    • “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…” – Pablo (44:03)
  • The irony: so much of this network’s bravado plays out publicly on social (Venmo, Instagram stories), often leaving digital breadcrumbs for investigators—and podcast sleuths.
  • Parallels drawn between Blakeney’s and Sugar Shane Hennin’s continued public presence and their ability to evade harsh punishment versus the big names.

The Paper Trail & Social Media Evidence

• Venmo Receipts and Video Reels (70:48–75:50):
  • Public Venmo records and Instagram videos (including boasts and betting slips) timestamp and visually document interactions and winnings, sometimes openly labeled “bet” or “pick.”
    • “Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairley June 23, 2022 bet. Those are two different transactions. I didn’t just reread the same one twice.” – Amin (73:04)
    • “We spent months on all of this stuff. But it’s just remarkable that these guys were…taping themselves over and over again. That was the business.” – Pablo (75:44)
• Questioning DOJ Timelines:
  • Pablo and Amin’s own digging finds team connections and payment trails preceding the government’s official start date for the conspiracy—suggesting a deeper, more entrenched problem.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the scale of the network:
  • “Everybody keeps saying, oh my gosh, Shane, you won a million dollars on the weekend…in all reality, I’m only winning like 50, 60k for the week.” – Amin (04:32)
• On Laster and Rozier’s arrangement:
  • “Scary Terry also paid for De Niro’s flights to Philadelphia, allegedly to pick up tens of thousands of dollars…” – Pablo (22:04)
• On the nature of NBA/college insider info:
  • “Information in basketball becomes currency because information flows through these people.” – Pablo (06:02)
• On point-shaving in China:
  • “Nothing guaranteed in this world but death, taxes, and Chinese basketball.” – Amin, quoting Shane Hennin (58:12)
• Saturn’s Rings Metaphor:
  • “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. …You’ve gotta remove each one of these countless pieces of rock.” – Amin (44:23)
• On network ‘loudness’ online:
  • “It’s not just that they catalog themselves doing all this stuff…It’s that they broadcast it.” – Pablo (76:08)
• On the DOJ’s challenge and who takes the fall:
  • “Why are the famous people getting the harshest punishments while the key instrumental characters…are way more under the radar?” – Pablo (69:52)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• [02:32] – FBI investigations and operation codenames
• [06:29–08:34] – Jontay Porter and the Rozier connection
• [13:59] – Introduction to Marvez “Vezino Locks” Fairley
• [19:22–22:55] – DeNiro “Peso” Laster’s role and payment connections
• [24:45] – The puzzle of “Co-Conspirator 1” laid out
• [31:39–34:58] – Suspicious CBA playoff games featuring Blakeney
• [36:16–41:04] – Blakeney’s backstory; economic realities for journeymen players
• [47:25–49:41] – Blakeney’s Florida robbery case and more personal/poker drama
• [53:53–56:55] – CBA’s response to match-fixing; timeline of the original conspiracy
• [59:10–59:28] – Nearly $200,000 in bribe cash in Florida storage unit
• [61:37–63:39] – The trend spreads to NCAA ranks—college games fixed
• [70:48–75:13] – Venmo receipts and Instagram evidence trail
• [76:08] – Social media “loudness” of the network
• [77:06] – Visual patterns and digital clues as storytelling hooks

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Tone and Style

The episode is a lively, irreverent, and deeply reported exploration—mixing investigative journalism with real-time banter, pop-culture references (mob films, Princess Bride, Saturn’s rings), and an almost incredulous fascination with how public and audacious the accused have been. Pablo uses wit but remains doggedly focused on facts, while Amin provides colorful commentary and consistent comedic relief, keeping the topic engaging without downplaying its seriousness.

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Episode Takeaways

• The NBA betting scandal’s “original sin” was a point-shaving operation in the Chinese league, spurred and organized by a tight-knit, socially performative clique whose leaders saw information as a commodity.
• Antonio Blakeney, “at times an NBA player,” emerges as the government’s unnamed “Co-Conspirator 1”—the bridge connecting the CBA scheme to NBA and NCAA betting manipulations.
• Despite mounting evidence and indictments, several key players remain free—or at least continue their public and professional lives—while star athletes face harsher scrutiny.
• Modern sports’ greatest vulnerability may lie not with its biggest stars, but with the networks of ex-players, fringe talents, and betting world influencers who move through sports both online and off, often leaving digital breadcrumbs in public view.

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“Can you sink into this rabbit hole to find all 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.”
— Pablo Torre (77:12)

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Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

Everybody's my friend. Everybody's surrounded around me, loving me and

[Pablo Torre]

whatever I say, that's what it is.

[Amin]

That's what it happened. Then one day I wake up. It's 60 federal agents outside my door

[Pablo Torre]

right after this ad, dreaming of getting the all new iPhone 17 Pro, designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever. Then stay in bed and let a Boost mobile expert deliver and set it up for you. Oh, actually they will have to get up and open the door. Oh, right. Delivery available for select devices [e-mail] terms apply. Let's be completely honest. Are you happy with your job? The fact is, a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown or one we never really wanted in the first place. But we stick it out and we give reasons. Like what if the next move is worse? And I've put years into this place and maybe the most common one. Isn't everyone miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry Me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you get from where you are to where you want to be, either at your existing job or by helping you find a new one. Your coach helps clarify your goals, creates a plan and keeps you accountable along the way. Go to Strawberry Me Career and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me Career. So before we jump into today's episode, a quick shout out to our sponsor, eBay Live. EBay Live is where real time excitement meets rare, exclusive, hard to find cards, collectibles, sneakers, watches and so much more. You can bid in live auctions, catch exclusive drops, buy directly from trusted sellers. While it is all happening live and it feels fun and interactive like a show, not just shopping with great hosts, creators and streamers. So download the ebay app and tap the ebay Live button to tune in today. 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.

[Amin]

Look, I. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

The two US Government investigations, I mean, about all of this stuff, were called what?

[Amin]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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. Henin, we allege, texted a confederate that the only things certain in life were, quote, death, taxes, and Chinese basketball. The greatest quote in this whole story.

[Amin]

Hold on. Is that our Mr. Hennin. Shane. Hennin Sugar. Shane.

[Pablo Torre]

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, and yes, once again, here we have the guy we focused on in our last episode, Mr. Sugar, Shane Hennan. And for those who missed the episode, Amin, how would you describe Mr. Hennin?

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

Everybody keeps saying, oh, my gosh, Shane, you won a million dollars on. On the weekend.

[Amin]

You won a million dollars on week.

[Pablo Torre]

So, yeah, it looks like I cashed

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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. 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

[Amin]

at the roulette table. That's my favorite place to be. That ain't the singles that Amin plays with. That's. That's real money.

[Pablo Torre]

Thousands upon thousands of dollars in chips. And you notice the geotag there, Amin, you're familiar with this location as well.

[Amin]

Oh, it's the win. This is NBA hotspot central during summer league.

[Pablo Torre]

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, Amin, who informed our last episode because they suspect that Mr. Hennan 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 Betters. 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. Of a group chat. A group chat that had one particular NBA player as a member.

[Amin]

Well, he's infamous now. It's Jontay Porter.

[Pablo Torre]

Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter has been banned from the NBA for life. The league announced. The NBA said that Porter provided confidential

[Amin]

information to Betters, limited his own participation

[Pablo Torre]

in games for gambling purposes and bet on NBA games. This is back in 2024 feeding information to this group chat of dudes and. And this cast of characters now is expanding. Right. So that's what this third indictment is doing. Our goal this entire time at me 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 Cash Patel, who calls this whole thing the insider trading saga for the NBA, would be who the

[Amin]

Terry Rozier, AKA Scary Terry Miami hates Terry Rosier, is asking that federal gambling charges against him be thrown out. His lawyers argue that the government turned a private dispute into. Into a federal case. Rozier has pled not guilty to charges that he tipped off gamblers that he would leave a 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 Betters 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 Rosier 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 Rosier, not with his team, the Miami Heat, not with any team, just kind of staying at home as

[Pablo Torre]

he faces those charges of conspiracy to 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 Jontay 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 mention 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 ended 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 which started investigating all this pre Cash Patel back in 2023. And an 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 has also represented another client frequently in the news. Do you know who his other famous client is?

[Amin]

Is it Donald J. Trump?

[Pablo Torre]

It is the President of the United States.

[Amin]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

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. General. 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 Trusty's phone.

[Amin]

A lot of people trust him.

[Pablo Torre]

So my concern at 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 him 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 that 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. 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 am mean who brings us back into a world that I think a lot of. A lot of your friends have been trying to convince you to quit.

[Amin]

There's so many things on that list. Is it alcohol? Is it. Is it. Is it going to Vegas?

[Pablo Torre]

What kind of all of that? Latinas, but also the nether regions of the NBA Internet. So the aforementioned Sugar Shane Hennan, he of the death taxes in Chinese basketball quote, which I do still want on merch. This dude was the guy who allegedly ran the network of dudes on the Johnte Porter Group chat, the ones who were placing the actual bets with the sports books. Right. We're down the 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 betters, 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.

[Amin]

Yes, also known as vez, AKA Vezino, AKA Vezino locks. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

This is our year. We've been waiting on this. Let's get some money. Describe the visuals, please.

[Amin]

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. The Zino 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 consiglieres and he's the only black guy in the room. Fazino 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.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Amin]

And these guys are clearly not paid actors because they don't know quite how to, you know, project getting pumped up. 1, 2, 3.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

Absolutely.

[Pablo Torre]

It's also maybe a little more. You recall the Princess Bride?

[Amin]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a little more Vizzini Mervizzini than Bino.

[Amin]

Inconceivable.

[Pablo Torre]

He didn't fall. Inconceivable. You keep using the horde. I do not think it means what you think it means. But Marvez, Fairley vazino is a 40 year old former hooper. Okay. Listed at 6 foot 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 Vezino, you'll notice Amin is who.

[Amin]

Oh, that's the one and only Big Al Jefferson. They played for the Celtics, the Jazz, the Timberwolves, Charlotte Bobcats.

[Pablo Torre]

Big Al Jefferson, 6 foot 10 center, cousins with Vezino 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, Vezino would go on to become a weed dealer and a bookie. And in 2018, according to one of multiple trailers Vizino has posted for an as yet unpublished documentary, he becomes a character in a different kind of movie.

[Amin]

Everybody's my friend. Everybody's surrounded around Me, loving me.

[Pablo Torre]

And whatever I say, that's what it is.

[Amin]

That's what happened. Then one day I wake up, it's 60 federal agents outside my door. 60 federal agents. Kind of like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas.

[Pablo Torre]

Remember the helicopters?

[Amin]

Oh, so all those mob movies I watched, I knew it would come in handy. Got it. Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

The non fiction is in the fact that in 2018 Bazino Locks was indicted for something quite serious. Allegedly ordering the murder of a woman and her husband who was a guy who had allegedly robbed the Zino's brother. And what happened next? Amin in the movie of a Xeno Locks his life in September of 2022. This is a few years later, Bazino Locks LLC was formed. And we love LLCs on this show.

[Amin]

We sure do.

[Pablo Torre]

And the Vezino Express, which is, you guessed it, a party bus with a stripper pole in the back, was subsequently purchased.

[Amin]

Ah, I thought the Xeno Express was a substack.

[Pablo Torre]

I cannot wait for this documentary to come out.

[Amin]

Man, there's a lot going on in the Xeno world.

[Pablo Torre]

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 Fairley would have the murder charges dropped, favor of pleading guilty that year to a lesser crime of obtaining a cell phone in prison. And then he apparently served 0 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 Vezino Locks would not get locked up and continue to plead not guilty in all of these basketball indictments, by the way. And his attorney, 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. Amin, if you could Please read the

[Amin]

March 23, 2023 Charlotte Hornets game. Terry Rosier informed the defendant Dairo Laster that Rosier was going to prematurely remove himself from the game in the first quarter due to a supposed injury.

[Pablo Torre]

As the DOJ once again lists a

[Amin]

series of aliases, De Niro Laster, also known as Peso P A Y S O and Peso P E S O.

[Pablo Torre]

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, group chat, slash, Vezino 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.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 Vezino Locks, who then allegedly passed it on to his partner, Sugar Shane Hennan, 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.

[Amin]

That's what I was gonna. I swear to God it was Alec Baldwin looking ass.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[Amin]

States, Donald J. Trump.

[Pablo Torre]

President Donald J. Trump.

[Amin]

Oh, wow. Two for two.

[Pablo Torre]

And that attorney would also, by the way, be 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 Rogier's unders hit, Scary Terry also paid for De Niro's flights to Philadelphia, allegedly to pick up tens of thousands of dollars from Vezino Locks, AKA 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 Vezino Locks allegedly worked.

[Amin]

Inconceivable.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

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, Fairley and Co Conspirator No. 1 agreed to pay Laster approximately $100,000 from their expected fraudulent gambling winnings. Prior to the March 23 game, Fairley, Laster and Co Conspirator No. 1 exchanged text messages confirming that Rozier planned to exit the game prematurely and confirming their plan place wagers on Rosier's unders I. E. That Rosier would underperform relative to the odds makers betting lines for his individual performance.

[Pablo Torre]

This is where I need to tell you, I mean that the Nero Laster is not the athlete, the mystery man with the really dirty hands we were alluding to before. And Vizino Locks Marvis Fairy 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 Amin as to who co conspirator number one would be. And they're a bit cryptic as the federal government lays it out for us.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

And I love what at times is daring us to contemplate here. What is it? What the does it mean to be at times an NBA player?

[Amin]

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, they're doing that little dozy doe, then you would be considered at times an NBA player.

[Pablo Torre]

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. Until clutch time, in which case he becomes occasionally not an NBA player.

[Amin]

Not nice, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

So here are the details. At times, an NBA player and a Florida resident. Yeah, 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 Visino Locks, allegedly. And if we look at the timeline here of inside information about the NBA games in question, which Bazino 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. Jerry Rogier, still in the game. He's played every minute of our first quarter. According to the vets, co conspirator number one wasn't just involved when Terry Rozier strangely exited that Hornets game early on March 23, 2023. Those are the two guys replacing Kelly Oubre and Terry Rozier to begin our second half. Prosecutors also allege that co conspirator number one was involved in multiple bets that this network placed on the Trailblazers game on March 24, 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 6, 2023, for which Vezino Locks and co conspirator number one allegedly worked together to place a fraudulent bet as well. Turn it over. There's been a lot of turnovers tonight. 21. 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.

[Amin]

The defendant, Marvis Fairley and co conspirator number one leverage co conspirator number one's personal relationship with one of the Magic's regularly starting players, Player two, an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury to obtain non public information about the April 6 game, which they used to place at least one successful wager.

[Pablo Torre]

And I will admit here that based on just these clues, we spent months trying to solve the mystery of who the 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. Foreign. If you think ebay is just the marketplace, you are missing a whole side of it. Ebay Live is where real time excitement meets rare, exclusive, hard to find cards, collectibles, sneakers, watches and so much more. You can bid in live auctions, catch exclusive drops and buy directly from trusted sellers while it is all happening live and it feels like a show, not just shopping with great hosts, creators and streamers. Stream, shop and score by downloading the ebay app and tapping the ebay Live button right under the search bar. Nothing hits quite like home cooking, but between work and family and life in general, it can feel really tough to find the time and energy to plan and shop for and make a home cooked meal. Luckily, HelloFresh is here to help. With over 100 recipes to choose from every week, including cuisines from around the world, you will never get bored with what you're eating. This week. For instance, I picked a steak lo mein, Indian style buttered chicken, a Cajun shrimp sando and my taste buds, needless to say, are excited to go on a world tour. And with wholesome ingredients, with seasonal produce, sustainably sourced seafood and 100% antibiotic and hormone free chicken, you know you're only putting the right type of food into your body. HelloFresh has the quality you can taste and it shows up to your doorstep with just about everything you need to make a delicious meal. So go to hellofresh.com PTFO10FM right now to get 10 free meals plus a free zilling knife. A $144.99 value on your third box offer valid while supplies last free meals applied as a discount on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan because when dinner tastes this good, nothing hits like home cooking. Dreaming of getting the all new iPhone 17 Pro designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever? Then stay in bed and let a boost mobile expert deliver and set it up for you. Oh actually they will have to get up and open the door. Oh right. Delivery available for select devices [e-mail] terms apply. 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. It's 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.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

Bounces off a butt cheek. Yeah, yep.

[Amin]

And then you get an inbound pass to nobody that even the announcer said.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

We should point out, Pablo, that this wasn't like in the third quarter, this is in the fourth quarter. Tightly contested game.

[Pablo Torre]

But number two, who we've been focusing on here is otherwise known here in the United States as who?

[Amin]

I'm not going to lie to you, I don't recognize the face. I wonder if I'll recognize the name.

[Pablo Torre]

You are not alone in your lack of recognition.

[Amin]

But.

[Pablo Torre]

But how dare you forget Antonio Blakeney?

[Amin]

Whoa. I remember him from lsu.

[Pablo Torre]

That is now Antonio Blakeney with a more mature goatee. And he's grown out his hair coming

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

And we heard this on an episode of the Euro Insiders podcast when they interviewed Antonio Blakeney recently himself.

[Amin]

Check the highlights, man. Like, people were calling you the best score in the country. So how did your environment shape the player that you're today?

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, I came up from like the urban area in Florida, like in

[Amin]

Sarasota, Florida and stuff.

[Pablo Torre]

So, you know, it made me tougher. I used to go to the rec center a lot.

[Amin]

Oh, that builds you up. That builds character.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Played out of open gym.

[Amin]

You ran McDonald's All American, correct?

[Pablo Torre]

Yep. At this moment, I guess you guys have so much confidence and I think the only thing like you guys think about this NBA, right? Yeah.

[Amin]

Is it Something that like you have

[Pablo Torre]

kind of regrets that your career wasn't

[Amin]

only NBA or like how like this

[Pablo Torre]

mental aspect played into your mind. I mean, obviously the NBA was always

[Amin]

the main goal and I, I did

[Pablo Torre]

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 gotta 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?

[Amin]

Check.

[Pablo Torre]

Is he at times an NBA player?

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 Fazino, Locks, 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 is referenced in this quote.

[Amin]

I mean quote. We introduced ourselves and Antonio directed me to the back bedroom while he and 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 Annapolis 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.

[Amin]

I did everything to make those guys sign when you offer what you offer.

[Pablo Torre]

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 money gram at Walmart, 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 Embassy Suites? Question mark, question mark Twitch. Lake96 apparently replied, yeah, I do.

[Amin]

What's up?

[Pablo Torre]

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

[Amin]

new recruit from Cleveland named Terry, dark skinned, big black. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

I think the term actually that you feel is really dirty, right? The really dirty hands. We'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 this is now a since deleted tweet as we see this photo.

[Amin]

Oh wow, it's Terry Rosier. A young Terry Rosier and Antonio Blakeney. And he certainly seems to be enjoying himself.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

So that was like the hardest point,

[Pablo Torre]

like being at summer league, trying to be positive. First two games don't even get in the game. So I'm going back to the room,

[Amin]

sad as hell, you know what I'm saying?

[Pablo Torre]

Like, dang, I don't know if it's going to work out. Like, I don't know what I'm 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.

[Amin]

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 their earliest. So many of these guys are living basically off of loans, loans from an agent, loans from someone else to, to help them float and skate by until they can get to their first paycheck.

[Pablo Torre]

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 @Blakeney96, the same one you see him hanging out with Dwyane 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 am convinced but still need to prove. Here is the US 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 8, 2018 when the Boston Celtics came to Chicago. And the night after that, an Instagram account, S M P E S O posted this photo. I mean, there 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 bull, you ass mother freaking busters. Tell him that, boy. What did you say? I believe he said that is some weak ass. Was that it, G Baby? Yeah. Let's see.

[Amin]

Hold on, man. That's G Baby from Hardball.

[Pablo Torre]

Is it ever to be clear?

[Amin]

The guy in the middle, that that's our guy Laster, right?

[Pablo Torre]

AKA Peso at psmpso at psm. Peso is in fact De Niro Laster. And right next to him, all grown up, is G Baby, aka Dwayne Warren from the 2001 classic Hardball.

[Amin]

He's older. I don't know if he's grown up.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[Amin]

that is our guy, Antonio Blakeney.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

And.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

It's kind of like Saturn's rings. They look like one solid ring, but as you get closer, you realize it 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 gonna get rid of these rings, you're not just gonna grab a whole ring and just walk away with it like a hula hoop. You've gotta Remove each one of these countless pieces of rock.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. And Pluto, of course, at times a planet its own tortured existence.

[Amin]

It had a cup of coffee in the solar system, Is that what you're saying?

[Pablo Torre]

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, Daero Laster would eventually comment on another post on Instagram, this you the man. And what posts was that comment on? It was this betting slip. And this betting slip was posted, of course, by this guy, the xeno 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.

[Amin]

And the caption is breakout season ready, exclamation point, exclamation point. And at Blakeney, 96.

[Pablo Torre]

Now, the Bulls back on planet Earth were about to buy out his contract for the season, forcing him to give up the hundred thousand dollars. 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 friend's 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.

[Amin]

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. 100 grand birthday bash celebrating Blakeney, 96. Oh, there's stacks of money photoshopped on there.

[Pablo Torre]

And so as we follow his trajectory, the COVID bubble 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 Amin in the Orlando Sentinel.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

Now, what's weird about these court records, Antonio Blakeney's court records, is that they have since been expunged. But records you 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, 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.

[Amin]

I'll shoot you in the face.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 over playing cards the night before.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

Allegedly, that seems to be the case. But less than three weeks later, a victim files this affidavit, quote, it is

[Amin]

my desire that the case against Antonio Blakeney and any others not be prosecuted. The incident was a misunderstanding of unquote.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

Oh man, I feel like this is one of the crueler episodes we've ever done, man.

[Pablo Torre]

But in this case, no, we are talking not about Greenland, but back to China. I really want to take a quick break to talk a little bit about the Drop by gnc. Because if you've been locked in lately on your health and fitness grind, then proper supplementation is probably very important to your daily routine. And thanks to gnc, it has never been easier to shop for your goals. For 90 years, GNC has been delivering the most cutting edge effective ingredients and products available and now you can cut through the clutter. With the Drop by gnc. You'll find the latest in everything from protein and creatine to weight management, immune support, and so much more from all the top brands. We're talking Cadence, Wealthy, Bare Bells, Ghost, and not to mention innovations like the new GNC Amp Creobolic. The first of its kind formula combines creatine with my HMB and bioactive peptides to build not just muscle, but also repair and protect muscle in ways creatine alone simply cannot. There's also the improved GNC Amp Webolic, the most studied protein formula on the market, proven to significantly increase your strength and endurance. And now they've increased the protein and perfected the taste. You can get these and more of what's new and what's next only on the drop by GNC. Just search gnc.com the drop we all prefer things a certain way. Like groceries. If you want groceries just how you like them, you gotta try Instacart. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences upfront, helping guide their choices. Because when it comes to groceries, the details matter. Instacart get groceries just how you like. Dreaming of getting the all new iPhone 17 Pro designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever. Then stay in bed and let a Boost Mobile expert deliver and set it up for you. Oh actually they will have to get up and open the door. Oh right. Delivery available for select devices [e-mail] terms apply. 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, is 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 find the two teams banned their coaches, banned their GMs for years each and said in a statement this we

[Amin]

are deeply saddened by the incident. In sports competitions, reputation is more important than ability.

[Pablo Torre]

And that's a pretty post translation, a pretty profound and useful reminder, right?

[Amin]

He's always been a very eloquent man.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, look, from his vantage point, 7ft 6 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, according to the US Government, Antonio Blakeney had been point shaving in the Chinese Basketball Association. So we return to some illustrative video exhibits that illustrate this point.

[Amin]

It's a terrible miss by Blakely. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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,

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

And this, in the grand timeline that the federal government has provided, is the real original sin of Team VO locks. It's March 6, 2023. And this is, I will remind you, before the NBA games that implicate scary Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups and Jaunte 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.

[Amin]

Before this game, the fixers, including defendants Marvis Fairley and Shane Hennan 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 Hennin engaged in numerous text message communications directing wagers on this game.

[Pablo Torre]

This is the birth, the true birth as documented, of the Team Vezino Locks Network, formerly known as the Dante Porter Group Chat. Because they tried this in China, man. That's where they first attempted the most ambitious and infamous scheme in the era of modern legalized sports gambling. Allegedly Vazino Locks and Sugar Shane recruited from 7900 or so miles away, a guy who would shave points by tanking 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.

[Amin]

Jesus. Nothing guaranteed in this world but death, taxes and Chinese basketball. He's an eloquent man as well.

[Pablo Torre]

It is incredible that this is how that quote comes to be. Although I should also add that a lawyer for Shane Hennan 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 Rogier 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 sports book in Philadelphia, back in America, and by April, according to the indictment, this is before the CBA playoff started.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 Chinese Basketball association legally in America.

[Amin]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

That's how it happens, right?

[Amin]

Allegedly.

[Pablo Torre]

Allegedly. They are so egregious in how they conduct their scheme. Team Bazino locks unsubtle, right? They raise the red flags themselves, and that's why they're. That's why we're here talking about this, right?

[Amin]

So. 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 Saunders to go 11 point. 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 French players. Give me one of the guys who's making a lot of money, who plays considerably for a team.

[Pablo Torre]

Allegedly.

[Amin]

Allegedly.

[Pablo Torre]

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 working, climbing the ladder, right? And one of the fascinating things is 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 got into 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?

[Amin]

I kind of feel like Antonio Blakeney exists at a weird nexus in American sports in that if you 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 gonna be that much of a money maker. 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 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 Visino Locks 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 Bo 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

[Amin]

with this October 17, 2024 violation, conspiracy to commit wire fraud. One count.

[Pablo Torre]

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 like 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, man. Because throughout this story, we've been noticing the ways in which the aforementioned previously displayed Sugar Shane Hennin 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 Xeno 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've been trying and trying and trying to ask Antonio Blakeney, are you co conspirator number one, Are you somebody who has 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 and a half points a game for Hopoell Tel Aviv, whose coach has said he has, quote, full trust in the star he calls A.B. we have no concerns in regards of the integrity, commitment and the sports sport ethic that AB has. Except we are also told that ever since the death taxes in 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 Tabawell 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 Pablo 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 US 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.

[Amin]

There's some parallels there between him and Shane Hannon.

[Pablo Torre]

Yo.

[Amin]

Constantly kind of teflon their way out of whatever, doing whatever it takes to stay out or whatever, and at the same time living their lives in a very public way that probably betrays some of the confidence is required to do what they're doing in order to get out of trouble.

[Pablo Torre]

And that, to be very clear, is allegedly not Carlito's way, but.

[Amin]

But the Vizino way.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. The theory, 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?

[Amin]

That's the hundred thousand dollar question.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

Beginning in or About September of 2022, a group of individuals, quote the fixers, work together to recruit and bribe players.

[Pablo Torre]

But we didn't want to just take the government start date of September of 2022 at face value. We wanted to find the earliest evidence of Antonio Blakeney transacting with Team Vezino locks. And so we followed the money to one more part of the basketball Internet.

[Amin]

This looks like a Venmo. Is that a Venmo or PayPal?

[Pablo Torre]

This is a Venmo.

[Amin]

A Venmo, a Venmo profile page for one Marvis Fairley, simply Arvis Fairley with 22 friends.

[Pablo Torre]

Venmo is worth remembering, is 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 Hyphen Fairley doing on Venmo?

[Amin]

Marvis Fairley Paid Shane Hennan May 30, 2022 Flight Marvis Fairley Paid Shane Hennan June 4, 2022 Birthday Marvis Fairley Paid Shane hennon June 8, 2022 Bills what's

[Pablo Torre]

the next thing in Marvis Fairley's feed?

[Amin]

Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairley June 12, 2022 Pick I once did this to a friend of mine who worked in government and we had gone out for drinks and I said, hey, I'll Venmo you my share.

[Pablo Torre]

What did you

[Amin]

Money laundering. But my Venmo is private, so I just knew it was going to be an inside joke between me and my friend.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[Amin]

Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairley June 23, 2022 bet. Antonio Blakeney paid Marvis Fairleigh June 23, 2022 bet Ladies and gentlemen, those are two different transactions. I didn't just reread the same one twice.

[Pablo Torre]

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 Warrior 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 you know 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 Vizino Locks Instagram reel tab. Because this is the other trailer for the documentary of Marvis Fairley's admittedly fascinating life.

[Amin]

You don't like the eyes? We're inside a condo somewhere. Vezino's sitting on a couch and what appears to be Antonio Blakeney standing up holding some money. Now they're celebrating. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

Lock, man.

[Amin]

And he shouts out, bazino locks. And then VO grabs his phone and pulls out the betting slip. Could we pause right here?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Amin]

It's a Caesar sports book betting slip.

[Pablo Torre]

Enhance. Enhance.

[Amin]

Total cost $103,300. Max win. $93,909 and 10 cents. This is at Caesar Sportsbook, Harrah's Gulf Coast.

[Pablo Torre]

We're looking at game six of the Eastern Conference finals, Celtics heat. And of course, this bet was cashed. And, like, this whole question of, like, snitching, right? Like, I. 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.

[Amin]

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. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, this video was posted on June 1, 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 Vezino 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. 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 Vezino 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.

[Amin]

That is a Dan Flash's ass shirt, man.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, God. By the way, Amin 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 Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.

[Amin]

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[Pablo Torre]

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