Moose, the Money and a Garbage-Time God: A PTFO Investigation

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Moose, the Money and a Garbage-Time God: A PTFO Investigation"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Pablo Torre Finds Out
• Host: Pablo Torre
• Episode Title: Moose, the Money and a Garbage-Time God: A PTFO Investigation
• Release Date: July 15, 2025
• Platforms: YouTube, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Newsletter

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1. Introduction: Unveiling a Complex NBA Gambling Scandal

In the July 15, 2025, episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out titled "Moose, the Money and a Garbage-Time God: A PTFO Investigation," host Pablo Torre delves deep into one of the most intricate and unsettling gambling scandals in the NBA's era of legalized sports betting. Joined by correspondents Tom Haberstroh and Amin Elhassan, Pablo navigates through a tangled web of allegations, social media mysteries, and high-stakes financial dealings that threaten to shake the foundations of professional basketball.

Notable Quote:

Pablo Torre [00:31]: "This is a very serious story, a very stupid story, and I think an almost shockingly smart story."

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2. Background: The Porter Scandal Sets the Stage

The investigation takes root by referencing the downfall of John Tay Porter, an obscure Toronto Raptor who was banned for life from the NBA in April 2024 for conspiring to bet on and sabotage games. Porter’s actions, coupled with his association with deli owner Amar Awadeh and other gamblers, created a precedent for scrutiny within the league.

Notable Quotes:

Pablo Torre [02:09]: "John Tay Porter was banned for life from the NBA for betting on and tanking games..."

Unnamed Speaker [01:35]: "Comedy comes in threes. It's a funny story."

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3. Enter Malik Beasley: A New Allegation Emerges

As free agency looms, the spotlight shifts to Malik Beasley, a Detroit Pistons guard currently under investigation by the U.S. District Attorney’s office for alleged gambling on NBA games and prop bets during the 2023-2024 season. Beasley's potential three-year, $42 million contract with the Pistons is jeopardized by these serious allegations.

Notable Quotes:

Amin Elhassan [03:34]: "The U.S. district Attorney's office is investigating Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley..."

Pablo Torre [05:08]: "Unusually heavy betting interest on Beasley statistics beginning around January 2024."

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4. The Enigma of Free Moose_NBA: Social Media’s Role

A pivotal moment in the investigation is introduced when a Twitter user named Free Moose_NBA predicts the involvement of Malik Beasley in the ongoing federal investigation. This account first gains attention by hinting at scandals involving Jonte Porter and Terry Rozier, suggesting a pattern of misconduct within the NBA betting scene.

Notable Quotes:

Amin Elhassan [12:32]: "Free Moose_NBA has it in that."

Pablo Torre [15:15]: "It's happening in the mentions of this thing."

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5. Connecting the Dots: From Twitter to Real-Life Implications

Through meticulous research, Pablo and his team uncover that Free Moose_NBA is not an isolated figure but is intricately connected to Amar Awadeh, the deli owner linked to Porter’s scandal. Further investigation reveals that Free Moose_NBA is, in fact, Mustafa Omar, a disgruntled former Twitter user with ties to the NBA betting underground.

Notable Quotes:

Unnamed Speaker [35:01]: "But by now, as a student of the rule of three, Tom easily recognized Cell Phone guy. He was a third person we had noticed..."

Amin Elhassan [36:55]: "This account is called Moose and Boulders Picks. And this account sells, you guessed it, sports betting picks."

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6. The Betting Slip: Analyzing Malik Beasley’s Performance

A critical piece of evidence emerges from a betting slip posted by Free Moose_NBA on January 22, 2024, four days before the official investigation into Porter began. This slip wagers on Jonte Porter’s underperformance, hinting at premeditated insider knowledge. However, when analyzing Malik Beasley's performance in the flagged game on January 31, 2024, Beasley defied expectations by recording six rebounds—contrary to the under bet placed on him.

Notable Quotes:

Pablo Torre [28:45]: "The key thing here is that the line was at two and a half rebounds..."

Unnamed Speaker [29:00]: "Malik Beasley gets six rebounds."

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7. The Amar Awadeh Connection: Deepening the Scandal

The investigation uncovers Amar Awadeh’s connections to Free Moose_NBA through Facebook friendships and shared histories in illegal poker games. Omar, Amar’s brother, emerges as a pivotal figure, further entangling the network of gambling-related misconduct. The team discovers that Amar continued organizing illegal betting games even after the Porter scandal, indicating a persistent threat within the NBA.

Notable Quotes:

Amin Elhassan [54:14]: "Because a lot of people do not like Moose NBA because of what happened next..."

Pablo Torre [64:17]: "We have just verified that they are literal Facebook friends."

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8. Social Media Cleanup: The Vanishing Act of Free Moose_NBA

As Pablo’s team digs deeper, they find that Free Moose_NBA rapidly deletes his accounts across platforms, attempting to erase the digital footprints that could expose further connections. Despite these efforts, the remnants of his online presence and interactions provide critical clues that tie him back to the central figures involved in the NBA betting scandal.

Notable Quotes:

Amin Elhassan [33:52]: "He deleted his account and disappeared entirely..."

Pablo Torre [66:56]: "He had shut down his account at 123-747-4849, lowercase A."

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9. The Tournament of Misconnections: Linking Events Chronologically

The podcast meticulously outlines the timeline connecting various events:

• January 22, 2024: Free Moose_NBA posts a betting slip on Jonte Porter.
• January 26, 2024: The first game of the Porter investigation is announced.
• January 31, 2024: Malik Beasley’s flagged game with unusual betting activity occurs.

This sequence suggests a coordinated effort to manipulate betting outcomes, with Free Moose_NBA serving as a key disruptor and potential whistleblower within the NBA's gambling landscape.

Notable Quotes:

Amin Elhassan [69:36]: "So we have within less than 10 days, the betting slip, the first Jonte Porter game, and the Malik Beasley game."

Pablo Torre [70:18]: "Steve Haney, Tom, he didn't send us a statement. Right."

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10. Legal Repercussions and Continuing Investigation

The episode concludes with Malik Beasley's attorney, Steve Haney, condemning the premature allegations and emphasizing the harm caused by unverified accusations. Despite the emerging evidence, key legal figures remain silent, leaving the investigation shrouded in mystery and continuous probing.

Notable Quotes:

Steve Haney [70:37]: "The mere allegations have caused irreparable harm to Malik's image, reputation and career."

Pablo Torre [73:54]: "The rule of the Godfather 3 this has been Pablo Torre Finds Out..."

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11. Conclusion: The Implications for the NBA and Sports Betting

Pablo Torre wraps up by highlighting the intricate connections between social media influencers, underground betting rings, and professional athletes. The investigation not only exposes individual malpractices but also raises broader concerns about the integrity of sports in an era where legalized gambling can influence outcomes and reputations.

Notable Quotes:

Pablo Torre [73:58]: "The rule of the Godfather 3...presenting my Internet brained, exhausted friends Tom and Amin with a disturbing truth..."

Unnamed Speaker [71:43]: "Lawyer. Lawyer."

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Final Thoughts: This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out serves as a compelling narrative that intertwines investigative journalism with real-time social media sleuthing. By meticulously connecting dots between various players in the NBA betting scandal, Pablo and his team shed light on the dark underbelly of professional sports influenced by illicit gambling activities. The inclusion of notable quotes and specific timestamps enhances the narrative, providing listeners with a detailed and engaging account of the unfolding drama.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Paul. I'm Pablo Torre. And this episode of Pablo Torre Finds out is brought to you by Remy Martin. 1738 Accord Royale. Exceptionally smooth cognac for all your game day festivities. Please drink responsibly because today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people in the basketball and the gambling space, so, you know, work does get around eventually. It gets to me from people that.

[Pablo Torre]

I know right after this ad. This summer, try the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage at Starbucks. It's the classic blended iced coffee you.

[Amin Elhassan]

Know and love, now topped with a.

[Pablo Torre]

Creamy layer of handcrafted brown sugar cold foam. Available for a limited time. Your Straddle Frappuccino is ready at Starbucks. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. I have slept for like four hours. We have been reporting this up till this second. We're still reporting it as we're recording this. We don't have time to waste, unfortunately. This is a very serious story, a very stupid story, and I think an almost shockingly smart story.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Comedy comes in threes. It's a funny story.

[Amin Elhassan]

I feel like we're gonna get another revelation based on how this morning and this past couple weeks have gone. We're gonna get something else here, Pablo. So just stand by as we're taping this.

[Pablo Torre]

We continue to live the three of us. Rule of three. Continue to live inside a rabbit hole that can only be des as dank. It stinks of all sorts of things, including, literally, weed. So thank you to Tom Haberstro and Amin Elhazen for reprising your roles as PTFO correspondents. It is great to have you here.

[Amin Elhassan]

It's great to be here.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, so the reason I am voltroning here with my friends Tom and Amin, the Internet brain, co hosts of Basketball Illuminati, is because this episode is gonna be an investigation, an investigation into the newest and quite possibly weirdest mystery in the era of legalized gambling on professional sports. And this investigation required not only a dozen sources, as well as the kind of statistical insight you can only [e-mail], but also in Amin, a former Phoenix Suns exec who loves Nicolas Cage movies, as you will see, because in April of 2024, as you might recall, an obscure Toronto raptor named John Tay Porter got banned for life from the NBA for betting on and tanking games, allegedly as early as January 2024. Porter ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a deli owner named Amar Awadeh and a few other gamblers. And on our YouTube channel, by the way, you can now see a photo of these co conspirators from the federal complaint. Mar Awade is the guy in the top left in the red hoodie. But that was then. A couple weeks ago, on the eve of NBA free agency, the spotlight turned to someone new. This is a serious development from one.

[Amin Elhassan]

Of the NBA's top free agents. Right now, sources tell me the U.S. district Attorney's office is investigating Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley on allegations of of gambling on NBA games and prop bets. I'm told it was during, allegedly the 2023, 2024 season. Beasley and the Pistons were in serious talks on finalizing a three year, $42 million contract that would have brought Beasley back to Detroit.

[Pablo Torre]

The Pistons have added Duncan Robinson. They added him because Malik Beasley has some financial problems. He's got a federal investigation.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Source told me this situation is worse than the Porter situation.

[Amin Elhassan]

Oh, they released the information for a reason. The timing of the release is for a reason. The government wants to get as much attention as possible. Oh, this is FBI.

[Pablo Torre]

This isn't local. This is FBI. Yeah, this is under federal investigation.

[Amin Elhassan]

Oh, listen, brother, look, I know one thing for certain, two things for sure. If it's local police, you've got a.

[Pablo Torre]

50, 50 chance against the government. And if this scandal is the first you have ever really thought about Malik Beasley, perhaps because you're not addicted to NBA Twitter as the three of us are. I get it. Malik Beasley is not super famous. He's played for six different teams. In fact, aggressively gambling on Malik Beasley was itself a red flag. According to espn. What one US Sportsbook detected was, quote.

[Amin Elhassan]

Unusually heavy betting interest on Beasley statistics beginning around January 2024. This was when Malik Beasley was actually with the Milwaukee Bucks. And that was one game, January 31, 2024. The sportsbook reported something very suspicious happened. Quote, the odds on Malik Beasley recording fewer than two and a half rebounds moved significantly at sportsbooks before the game due to a surge of action under.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not a common gambling subject. Right. Like people are betting on LeBron's points plus rebounds plus assists. Or Giannis over under on dunks or three pointers made by Steph Curry. You're not digging deep for Malik Beasley rebounds.

[Pablo Torre]

And so on the eve of free agency, we are told when news of the resultant federal investigation broke, the Detroit Pistons were staggered.

[Amin Elhassan]

They had met with Malik Beasley. According to sources that I talked to Malik Beasley and his agent and we're basically ironing out the markings of a $42 million contract, three years, 42 million, which if you look at the capology, that's basically the full mid level exception.

[Pablo Torre]

Which Malik Beasley was so, so, so close to getting. In fact, if there's one more thing to know about Malik Beasley right now, it is that as a basketball player, he is radically different from Jonte Porter.

[Amin Elhassan]

Malik Beasley is one of the greatest, full stop greatest three point shooters in NBA history. He had the Minnesota Timberwolves single season, three point field goals made record. And then a couple years later, he did the same thing with the Detroit Pistons.

[Pablo Torre]

The list this past season, it was Anthony Edwards, very narrowly just ahead of Malik Beasley, who was ahead of Steph Curry.

[Amin Elhassan]

Malik Beasley statistically has scored more three pointers per minute than any player in NBA history except for Steph Curry. Think about that. We are talking about in a three point era, Malik Beasley does more of these things than anybody who played at least 500 games in their NBA career. Except for Stephen Wardell Curry.

[Pablo Torre]

The reason why Malik Beasley, that number, that money vaporized, by the way, possibly Malik Beasley's career now has vaporized at age 28.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

And this led us to then try and monitor as much activity as we could ourselves by grinding tape what's publicly accessible. And so what do we do? We looked for every piece of evidence we could find in the public record. And this happens to also be how we found this clip, which was buried inside a vlog on Malik Beasley's YouTube channel from six months ago during the best NBA season of Malik Beasley's career when he was with the Detroit Pistons. And Malik Beasley is pushing a shopping cart through a Target in Detroit and he suddenly gets spotted by an employee at the store. Nice to meet you, bro. What up?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, what's going on, bro?

[Pablo Torre]

That's crazy. What you looking for?

[Unnamed Speaker]

I need a monitor, but it's all good.

[Pablo Torre]

I got to go practice. I can't hear that. I can't hear that. Malik Beasley holding his hands up in the air and saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa. FanDuel. I can't talk about that.

[Amin Elhassan]

That's right. And as we will find out in this story, everything is so complicated. Like even that little clip, and that's.

[Pablo Torre]

Not even a clip that's been circulating on Twitter or Reddit or TikTok. We found that one buried. But the stuff that's been going viral, there's one in particular, right, that is back to his days in Minnesota.

[Amin Elhassan]

This Minnesota one viewed 14 million times. And everyone that I talked to in reporting out this story, they had all seen this clip and they'd all laughed at this clip in ways that everybody where it's just like, I mean, come on. What this clip is showing us is a very alert Malik Beasley with five seconds left in the game, waiting for a free throw to be attempted by the Clippers, who are up big in this game. The Tiber are going to lose this game. But Malik Beasley doesn't just get the ball and let the clock run out. He gets the ball and sprints all the way down the floor.

[Pablo Torre]

Beasley's going to get it off one last shot.

[Amin Elhassan]

How about Beasley 21 points and then does a two handed dunk right before the buzzer. And what's interesting is that that cut the Clippers lead from nine to seven. The spread on that game, guys, was eight and a half. So went from the Clippers covering to the Minnesota Timberwolves covering after that play.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The thing I'm fascinated by is the amount of people saying, there. It is proof. Oh, that's proof. You see, you see how he looked over there on the bench and then he looked up at the score? That's proof that these guys are gambling. I'm like, you're basically accusing someone of the ultimate crime within this profession. And so you get viral tweets with someone saying, oh, Malik Beasley's 100% going to jail. Or, yeah, he's done, he's finished. It's just wildly irresponsible.

[Pablo Torre]

Here's the complexity, though, that Tom is alluding to. Malik Beasley has already been to jail. Separate story. We're going to get there, Amin. We're going to get there. We'll explain that in a bit. But one source I spoke to, who was close to several of Malik Beasley's current and former NBA teammates, immediately told me when I asked if he had heard anything about the gambling issues. Quote, he's a dumbass. I believe everything. End quote. So that's not enough. We had to keep digging. The thing that we got to, guys, the real story inside the story that no one else is really talking about is this mystery. It is an online mystery that I believe that we all now believe is the key to understanding the story of Malik Beasley as well as this era, the era of legalized gambling in sports in general. And this mystery started in January of this year with a Twitter user who goes by the name of free moose underscore NBA.

[Amin Elhassan]

You might remember that on January 30, 2025, a few months ago, this news broke.

[Pablo Torre]

Now to a developing story. The NBA confirmed Thursday that suspicious gambling.

[Amin Elhassan]

Activity surrounding guard Terry Rozier in a game nearly two years ago is now.

[Pablo Torre]

Being investigated by federal prosecutors as a part of the same probe that led to the lifetime ban of former Raptors player Jontay Porter. Now, at the time, Rozier was playing for the Hornets.

[Amin Elhassan]

So Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who's under contract with the Heat as we speak, he became the second player after John Tay Porter to be publicly identified as a part of this federal investigation into sports betting. And what I'm told is contrary to Shams Charania's reporting is that Terry Rozier has not been cleared of any wrongdoing, only that his name came up in the existing federal investigation.

[Pablo Torre]

And this relates directly to why Moose is this character that we're focusing on, because Free Moose underscore MBA tomorrow speaks to the federal investigation, which clearly is also still ongoing.

[Amin Elhassan]

Right on that day, the same day that Terry Rozier news drops, this guy Free Moose underscore NBA tweeted something that was even more provocative because on that day, he posted, quote, first was Jonte, then was rosier. Next you'll hear about capital M, 4/isks, capital B, and then 6/isks.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The symmetry of the rule of three.

[Pablo Torre]

Jonte Rozier, M stars, B stars.

[Amin Elhassan]

This guy, Free Moose NBA posted another tweet right after that one and said there's another current player who's gonna have a report come out about them next. Won't say the name, but they play on the Pistons right now, what this.

[Pablo Torre]

Is is the first documented mention by anyone anywhere that Malik Beasley was going to come up as part of this investigation. This is how this news actually breaks. Free Moose NBA has it in that.

[Amin Elhassan]

Rule of three tweet and in this reporting, I determined this guy at the time of this tweet had something like 10,000 followers. And a lot of them were like, huh?

[Pablo Torre]

Like what?

[Amin Elhassan]

One of them later that night in a tweet exchange with Pistons fan, because Malik Beasley at this point is playing for the Pistons and being awesome, he tells Moose, you're lying, bro. Show me any amount of proof, bro. You don't know what he means to us. And Moose says, quote, I can't yet. I'm sorry, but gotta protect myself. 15 views on that.

[Pablo Torre]

It's incredible. I mean, this 15, this time capsule, which is almost six months before the news breaks, right? On the eve of reagency. Six, six months before it happens. It's happening in the mentions of this thing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So that's the crazy thing about this is maybe you think, oh, he's just, he's just throwing in the wall and trying to see what sticks, right? Shot in the dark. Then he, quote, tweets that tweet with a screenshot of a betting slip from January 22, 2024. That betting slip is Jonte Porter unders under on points, five and a half and under on rebounds, three and a half. Now, I know what you're thinking. Oh yeah, that's the game, right? No, the game that was in the court filings under investigation was for the first time was January 26th.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Meaning whoever placed the slip had the in on the Johnte Porter action months before the investigation was announced.

[Pablo Torre]

The question here is now very simple, right? On some level, because the entire Internet, the entire NBA, we can now confirm this, right? Everybody begins to ask Tom, who the is Moose underscore NBA? How did a random Twitter user on NBA Twitter know about both Dante Porter and also Malik Beasley on the day that Terry Rozier's name was included for the first time? The second of the three guys before any of this was breaking.

[Amin Elhassan]

Making things way more complicated is that Free Moose underscore NBA deleted his account and then disappeared off the Internet. Nobody to this day has been able to solve the mystery of who is free Moose underscore NBA until now. That was good. That was good, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

I just need people to know this is a story involves not just three NBA and not just Nick Cage, but also a legless woman, Carmelo Anthony, meme coins, my old friend Larsa Pippen, and arguably guys, arguably the greatest play in modern Knicks history.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Har Stein gets it out to Anobi DiVincenzo at three.

[Pablo Torre]

Bang, bang.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Knicks take a one point lead with 13 seconds remaining.

[Pablo Torre]

The Garden is shaking right now and.

[Unnamed Speaker]

None of you will ever look at that play the same way again.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, so before we get back to the mystery of free Moose underscore mba, we need to also very quickly explain here as much as we can where Malik Beasley himself actually comes from. And I did not fully appreciate this until we again we got into the rabbit hole on him.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I did not know this at all until we started digging into all of this. Malik Beasley comes from Hollywood, right? His parents are born both actors. His mom has had small roles in Tyler Perry movies, in the Hunger Games, in Bad, Lieutenant Portal, with the aformentioned Nicholas Cage.

[Pablo Torre]

When was the last time you saw her?

[Amin Elhassan]

I see her that morning.

[Pablo Torre]

I go by in case she need anything.

[Amin Elhassan]

But that morning she said she needs something from the grocery and she called there and had it delivered by a.

[Pablo Torre]

Boy to her home.

[Amin Elhassan]

Help me, please.

[Pablo Torre]

Please help my family. Kill her for my family. Please, sir. Help me. Help.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It's not just Dina Beasley, the mom. It's also his father, Michael Beasley. Not that Michael Beasley. Different Michael Beasley. He's got over 80 acting credits on IMDb. Denzel Washington is friends with him. He calls him the king of the Hollywood south because Michael Beasley has appeared in so many movies and TV shows living in Atlanta. And he and Denzel were together in the Great Debaters and. And Flight and Two Guns.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Tell us about your trip, lawyer.

[Pablo Torre]

What's the big deal? Lawyer. You were down in Sonora, weren't you?

[Unnamed Speaker]

You don't think agent Jessup and the DA know about you and Poppy?

[Pablo Torre]

Lawyer. Lawyer.

[Unnamed Speaker]

They know you were at his ranch.

[Amin Elhassan]

I know I need a lawyer. The fact of the matter is that the actual famous actor that started this all was Malik Beasley's grandfather, John Beasley. He's the most famous one. He was in Some of All Fears. He was also in the Mighty Ducks. And the thing that I just could not believe is that he is the assistant coach that you might remember from Rudy. My job is to basically beat the shit out of you for the next five days.

[Pablo Torre]

And whoever is still standing at the.

[Amin Elhassan]

End, maybe we'll use for our scout teams.

[Pablo Torre]

Malik Beasley, if you're wondering, got drafted 19th overall by the Denver Nuggets out of Florida State. But he also likes to say if you. If you get him one on one, that he was a bit of a child actor himself.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Honestly, if you want to see me in the background, I'm an extra.

[Pablo Torre]

Look in Madea's Family Reunion. What were you doing as an extra, bro?

[Unnamed Speaker]

I was an extra in Madea's Family Reunion. If you want to see me, I was dancing with my mom.

[Pablo Torre]

I don't think any show has ever investigated Madea's Family Reunion more thoroughly than Pablo Torre. Finds out we assigned a certain fact checker producer to go through the film a total of five times. We're looking for young Malik Beasley dancing with Dena. Right. We're looking for this scene that he describes on that YouTube live stream with neon. And we regret to report that we could not find this. We found no evidence of it. We are fact checking every element of this story, as you will see, as much as we can. But something we did find instead is a quote that Malik's parents gave to an outlet called Noiseomaha.com in 2022. According to Michael, his dad, quote, sometimes Malik wants what we have, and so he's in a rush to get it. People think because these guys have a lot of money, they're mature, end quote. Dina, the mom adds that making millions of dollars at a young age, quote, does not equate to knowledge or experience, end quote. Which I think naturally does bring us to the time we mentioned before where Malik Beasley in real life did go to jail.

[Amin Elhassan]

What you should know about that incident was it came in the spring of 2020 when Malik was with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He got married to a woman named Montana Yao. And by the fall of that year, his house had been mistakenly added to what is known as the Parade of Homes tour, which in the Minneapolis area is not just a big event. This is one of the biggest home tours across the country.

[Pablo Torre]

Now, if you're looking for something to do this weekend that doesn't include large groups of people, how about taking a drive to explore some of the beautiful homes on the spring Parade of Homes tour? Yeah, there's 434 houses open noon to 6 today and tomorrow.

[Amin Elhassan]

This is when a car full of people pull up to Malik Beasley's house. And apparently in the court records of this incident, he had roped off the driveway that you're allowed.

[Pablo Torre]

Parade is not welcome Here is the implication.

[Amin Elhassan]

Exactly. Move along. And so this car pulls up to the side of the road, not in his driveway, to the side of the road, to figure out, what are we going to do next? And that's when they turn and they hear a knock on the window. And Malik Beasley came out. He pointed a rifle at the car. And that incident was reported to the police. The police come to the property, Malik Beasley's house, and they search his house.

[Pablo Torre]

And this criminal complaint, I mean, which we pulled on this, you learn that the officers found multiple guns, almost two pounds of weed. A note. This is my favorite detail, A notebook that had written across the COVID in all caps, the word trap with two exclamation points. And the notebook contained, in case you were, of course, wondering, quote, rules for smoking marijuana in the home. And one of the rules, quote, only spend $2,500 a month on weed. End quote only.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Are you sure that notebook isn't also in Pablo Torre's house?

[Amin Elhassan]

Two months after this incident comes to light, right, he signs a four year, $60 million extension. His big payday. Like, he did it. He not just made it to the NBA, but he was able to get that big second contract that every NBA player wants.

[Pablo Torre]

And what an awesome week for him and his wife, Montana Yao, right? Just imagine, $60 million comes in, except three days after that deal gets signed. And this is also while Malik is simultaneously awaiting sentencing for the gun incident, he is photographed holding hands at a mall in Miami with a masked but unmistakable former PTFO guests like the two of you by the name of Larsa Pippen, the ex wife of Scotty Pippen, future ex girlfriend of Marcus Jordan, and also, crucially, a recent guest on the Jason Lee podcast. When you look back on a Malik and go, that was a mistake.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Why do you think you didn't see.

[Pablo Torre]

It when I saw it? Because I had Covid brain. I had just had Covid. I was stuck in my house. I hadn't gone anywhere. And he was there and he was like, on me, you know, like, let me see you. Let me come see you. Let me come see you. And I thought, okay, come see me.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It should come as no surprise to everyone that Malik's wife, Montana Yao, filed for divorce.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I just gotta jump in here to point out that, yes, all roads do lead to Larsa Pippin, because, of course, they do. And from there, Malik Beasley's road gets a lot rockier. He proceeds to plead guilty to a single felony charge of threats of violence because of the whole Parade of Homes incident, telling a courtroom in Minnesota, quote, I'm not that person, end quote. But then that person gets sued repeatedly over approximately $8 million in total. And some of this has since been settled. But the list of creditors includes a Maryland firm that specializes in loaning money to pro athletes, his own apartment building in Detroit, his former agent in New York, his barber shop in Milwaukee, and.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not to be outdone, his dentist in Minnesota is also suing him, Dr. Hassan Al Shahabi.

[Pablo Torre]

And by the way, Minnesota proceeds to trade Malik Beasley to the Jazz, which trades him to the Lakers, who don't renew his contract. And so he winds up in Milwaukee that way, playing in that game on January 31, 2024 that got flagged for suspicious betting activity. The season before that, Malik Beasley had been making about $16 million.

[Amin Elhassan]

But Malik Beasley, in the season where all of this stuff is happening, he has dropped his salary 90%.

[Pablo Torre]

A 90% pay cut. All of which makes the story of Malik Beasley look as simple as that wildly viral clip of him going coast to coast and covering the spread in Minnesota. But in the course of fact checking, we wound up giving that clip, that same clip, the Madea's family reunion treatment, as it were. We watched the film over and over and over again before ultimately calling for a deeper statistical analysis. And we discovered something shocking about its alleged simplicity.

[Amin Elhassan]

It is not simple. I talked to Mike Boui for this story, like he is this analytics guru, this mastermind behind this amazing, indispensable site called inpredictable.com and most of the stats on his site are about clutch with respect to the score of the game, meaning, you know, game within five final five minutes. That's typically what we know as clutch.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Amin Elhassan]

But there's this other piece that until we were reporting this story, I don't think anyone's really kind of done a research project like this. Which is why, what if we were looking at Clutch in terms of the spread? And according to Mike Bowie's numbers, he looked at this since 2021. So the last five seasons. Here are the numbers. Garbage time. So when the game is out of reach, but Vegas clutch situations, the spread is still in play. Malik Beasley shot 62% effective field goal percentage, which is weighted for three pointers on 147 attempts. Garbage time. And Vegas garbage time situations, which means both the game is out of reach and the spread is not in play. Malik Beasley goes from 62% of field goal percentage up to 64% of field goal percentage. So what this says is when the game is meaningless in both the score and the Vegas spread, he gets even better. Malik Beasley is a garbage time God. That Minnesota Timberwolves clip, that's just Malik Beasley all the time.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I do want to just now focus, though, on the most compelling piece of evidence that has been reported, Right, which is that there was, Tom, this unusual betting activity, this spike in betting activity. This is the seemingly the one and only identifiable example so far that we have. And it's this flurry of bets on the under from a leak. Beasley rebounds again, a prop bet in that Bucks Blazers game on January 31, 2024. So what is the real story with that particular example then? Right.

[Amin Elhassan]

The key thing here is that the line was at two and a half rebounds in that game where all this Unusual betting activity is coming in on the under. Guess what happens. Malik Beasley gets six rebounds.

[Pablo Torre]

So the bet is Malik Beasley is going to tank this very tankable category. Just not going to try. I mean, and instead, yeah, he has one of the better rebounding games of his season.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He's busting his ass. You look at the film, he's busting his ass trying to get every rebound imaginable. It looks like Charles Barkley out there.

[Pablo Torre]

Again on our YouTube channel, which you should be at already. Like, we're going through the video here. You can see it.

[Amin Elhassan]

This is the crazy part of this story, is even the betting activity on Jontay Porter, those cashed because he left the games early, right? And all the alleged co conspirators were betting the unders. And John Tay Porter was taking himself out of these games, effectively clinching the unders, and those bets were cashing. The opposite happened. And Malik Beasley, he's out on the perimeter defending his man. The shot goes up and he sprints from across the floor to go haul in a rebound on the other side of the floor over Deandre Ayton, who's 7ft tall, and he's making multiple efforts trying to get these rebounds. You would have thought that the betting activity was on the other side based on what Malik Beasley's behaviors in this game is. It is so contradictory to the betting activity, to what he actually did in the game.

[Unnamed Speaker]

If the guy was on the take, he was awful at being on the take.

[Pablo Torre]

And the through line here when it comes to this part of the story, right, is that it's actually, Tom, really hard to find evidence in this category, at least of malfeasance in Milwaukee. Right? His buck's tenure on tape. When he. When you grind all of it, you don't see the giant smoking gun. It kind of becomes clear, actually, that at this point in our journey, the. The most important publicly accessible evidence available to us or was not going to come from the bucks, it was going to have to come.

[Amin Elhassan]

From a moose.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Pablo Torre]

Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com so the mystery, right, the mystery we've been teasing of how in the hell some random Twitter user had predicted six months before the Malik Beasley News broke that Malik Beasley was going to become the third NBA player investigated for gambling. This brings us to, I would say, one immediate problem when it comes to contacting an account whose avatar happens to be a stuffed toy moose wearing a little blue sweater with an NBA logo on the front that is also trapped behind bars. Like in a jail cell, right? This is free moose underscore NBA Tom.

[Amin Elhassan]

And the only way we could do that is to go on a moose hunt. Going on a moose hunt.

[Pablo Torre]

Every parent knows I don't know that song. But speaking of stuff that gets stuck in your head, as we had established, Free Moosenva deleted his Twitter account and disappeared entirely, which is a problem here. But here's the thing. The tweets that tagged Free moosenba are still around. And after scrolling through a thousand orphaned replies and direct messaging a few of those posters, it became clear that Free Moosemba used to go by another handlenba, but oosenba got suspended by Twitter at one point. Hence the call for freedom.

[Unnamed Speaker]

This is the original Moose NBA account. And the bio says NBA takes you can get behind Meme Coin Expert. And then my favorite emoji, a stock chart going up.

[Pablo Torre]

And then deep inside a haystack of hundreds upon hundreds of truly useless tweets that tagged Moosemba, Tom found a needle. A needle posted by a self described LeBron fan account.

[Amin Elhassan]

This one caught my eye because it not only Tagged and @moosenba, but it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Also tagged a second account underscore Mustafa Omar. So he says, yo Mustafa underscore Omar your got suspended. Wtf? Question mark, question mark no. And then he tags moosenba heartbreak emoji.

[Pablo Torre]

Which I think takes us to what Moose might actually be referring to as a mean is again nailing the pronunciation, because I suppose it means that some Mustafas also might go by Moose.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The most common nickname of anybody with an Arabic name is if your name's Muhammad, probably people are going to call you Mo. If your name's Mustafa, probably people are going to call you Moose. Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

But the problem with Mustafa underscore Omar, as you can tell, is that this account didn't exist anymore either. But when you searched for that specific handle, mustafaomar on Elon Musk's deeply broken platform, something interesting happened. An even weirder account kept popping up, and this one was actively tweeting about the Knicks. This was at 123-747-48, 4849-LOWERCASE A.

[Unnamed Speaker]

This is the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible latex mask of Twitter, right? We're just like numbers, they'll never guess who it is.

[Pablo Torre]

But if you obsessively scroll through the tweets sent by at 123-747-4849 lowercase A. Long enough, it turns out, you can stumble across another clue, another needle. And this one was a reply to another former PTFO guest, WorldWideWab Rob Perez, a crucial node on the Knicks social graph on Twitter because Rob was running a promo where the prize was assigned Jalen Brunson jersey. And when 123-747-4849 lowercase A replied to WOB and included the screenshot of his personal account on a fantasy sports crypto platform as proof, there it was in full clarity. For the first time, we had traced Free Moosemba the account that prophesied that Malik Beasley would be the next player named as part of a federal sports gambling investigation to a government name Mustafa Omar. But now we needed a face. What we then did was we found the same Mustafa Omar account on Facebook and also on Instagram and the latter two, Facebook and Instagram. You see young man, trimmed beard, blue top that happens to be a Carmelo Anthony Knicks jersey.

[Unnamed Speaker]

How about that?

[Amin Elhassan]

One of the DMS that I sent in the past couple weeks, I was trying to get to the bottom of this story and one of the sources sent us a screenshot of a since deleted post from Moose NBA himself, which showed the same exact young man with a trim beard posting a selfie video while trying on a Knicks varsity jacket at a store. And the caption says here Knicks jacket do we like or nah, only $75. LOL.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But Tom, why would someone save a screenshot of a deleted selfie video about a jacket? Should he buy it or not for 75 bucks?

[Amin Elhassan]

Because a lot of people do not like Moose NBA because of what happened next. This brings us back to the original bio of Moose, NBA meme coin expert. But there was this other thing. We found another Twitter account which tagged Moose underscore NBA in the bio. The header photo is just piles of cash, piles and piles, like a cartoonish amount of cash just as the banner photo. So this account is called Moose and Boulders Picks. And this account sells, you guessed it, sports betting picks.

[Pablo Torre]

Which takes us to a tweet, again dated Thanksgiving is 2024 when this account posted, quote, join the discord and forever be etched in the most transparent and successful sports betting discord there is.

[Amin Elhassan]

Turns out, Pablo, that at least a couple of people who had been in this sports betting discord, they were not thrilled with its level of transparency or by the way, how good it was.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So you're saying they didn't make a huge pile of money like the banner would indicated?

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, in fact, what happens next is that we obtained another screenshot from yet another member of this discord, which again is basically like a paywalled group chat. And this screenshot shows our guy Moose also using the Discord to convince people to buy a meme coin that he calls the nca. The NCA stands for National Coin Association.

[Amin Elhassan]

According to one screenshot, Moose had tweeted again around Thanksgiving 2024. Quote I had an idea recently to make an NBA branded crypto coin. The idea was to make a discord community incentivized around the coin have a nice GC like Group chat to talk hoops, gambling and crypto. The coin was dumped out by bots. I went down with the ship. This account says sacrificed $6,700.

[Pablo Torre]

And to all of this, one account replies, quote, it's called a pump and dump, my guy. You knew what was going on here, End quote. This thing that we're looking at is the sort of business that would theoretically incentivize its owner to prove that he somehow has access to money, to inside information when it comes to sports betting picks, which he's selling. On this side hustle thing, it would help if you were running such a business to be the guy who was, let's say, ahead on the John Tay Porter News, ahead of the Malik Beasley news, and maybe even ahead of both of those things before not just the Internet or the media, but again, the Detroit Pistons themselves, right?

[Amin Elhassan]

And so we're trying to follow the money. And when you follow that money and you follow that one, 237-474-84849A account. And look at the replies. The artist formerly known as Mustafa Omar is repeatedly bragging and sending people the screenshot of Free Moose himself predicting the prophecy. The Malik Beasley News. So he's out here in this anonymous account saying, hey, hey, hey, don't forget about this thing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

This is insane. You guys understand that? It's like he like, like, like. Let me, Let me see if I can follow the logic here. He's like, hey, you should trust me because I have the inside scoop on what bets are going to hit. What? Well, how do you have that? Well, because I know they're cheating. The whole point is. Oh, I know not. I know because they're fixing it.

[Pablo Torre]

And so as we're scrolling through these brags, right? This is the reporting process. We're scrolling through these brags. Brag, brag, brag, brag, brag, brag, brag. I had a question that occurs to me as. I'm just seeing this happen over and over again. And the question for Tom was, if you were to slide into those dms, Tom, do you think Mustafa Omar might actually want to talk?

[Amin Elhassan]

What's going on?

[Tom Haberstroh]

Nothing much, my man.

[Amin Elhassan]

How we doing on this fine Tuesday?

[Tom Haberstroh]

Not too bad. I'm. I'm busy at work, but not too bad. I took a little time off.

[Amin Elhassan]

Oh, yeah? What's. What's work for you?

[Tom Haberstroh]

I am a manager at an auto collision shop.

[Amin Elhassan]

Okay, very cool. And where's that at? In New York somewhere.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Amin Elhassan]

Well, cool. So thanks for getting back to me. We're doing like this story on Malik Beasley and your Moose stuff came across when we were like going into the story and. And so finally connecting with you is great. And so thank you for, for picking up.

[Pablo Torre]

I love Tom's. Just like, what level of bro am I doing here with crypto gambler?

[Amin Elhassan]

You can hear like my, my throat is getting dry. Like, I can't believe this guy is talking.

[Pablo Torre]

It's incredible. I mean, it's just. I mean, what are you.

[Amin Elhassan]

How are you doing on this fine Tuesday? Like, what are you talking?

[Pablo Torre]

The most journalistic, tried and true method of knocking on the front door.

[Amin Elhassan]

So what I find out is that he's in his 20s, he is a Knicks fan. Not just a Knicks fan. He is a Knicks super fan. And he goes to Madison Square Garden and everything.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Yeah, a bunch of times.

[Amin Elhassan]

Who would you say is your favorite Knicks player of all time?

[Tom Haberstroh]

Gotta be mellow.

[Amin Elhassan]

Carmelo Anthony.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Yeah, it's gotta be mellow.

[Amin Elhassan]

But even more than that, when it comes to NBA Twitter, this guy says he's very well connected.

[Pablo Torre]

Mustafa Omar. Likes finding out stuff too.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Yeah, I mean, I go by Moose. I know a bunch of people involved in the NBA space. So if I ever have any questions, I'm able to eventually get them answered. The way that like you're a reporter and you go and you ask your questions to everybody and you try to get whatever. I kind of do the same. I just do just good research as well. I'm a stats guy. I was giving out stats and stuff that people wouldn't normally think of. My first ever post was a playoff scenario chart. Very similar to the one that NBA PR account on Twitter posted. But mine was a day before and then theirs looked identical to mine, which was very funny. So everybody kind of called out the fact that the NBA PR account basically ripped off my scenario chart. I started growing my account relatively quickly, got suspended, not sure why till this day. Made a second account. That one also got suspended. And now I'm kind of just off the grid of it because my accounts keep getting suspended.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Did he ever find out why he was getting suspended?

[Amin Elhassan]

Well, he says he doesn't know.

[Tom Haberstroh]

I wasn't like the most family friendly account either. I'm sure I said some things that people are going to take to liking sometimes. I'm sure that's possible.

[Pablo Torre]

I do like at this point how this guy is kind of all three of us in one person. He loves finding stuff out. He loves stats. He loves talking shit on Twitter unapologetically like a bean.

[Amin Elhassan]

And he is the sort of guy, again, who wants people to know that he knows things, including a forthcoming report about Malik BEASLEY. So on January 30, 2025, the same day that the federal investigation into Terry Rozier was announced, he tweets that thing out, the prophecy of Malik Beasley.

[Tom Haberstroh]

I mean, I. I just did it to be a little cryptic. I knew nobody would believe it, but obviously it's fine. I just put it out there just to be a little, like, cryptic from when it did come out, people could look back at it the way that they did when the news did. Came out.

[Amin Elhassan]

But how did you come across the. The Malik Beasley info?

[Tom Haberstroh]

Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people in the. In the basketball, in the gambling space. So, you know, work does get around. Eventually it gets to me from people that I know, obviously, people I'm not gonna, like, sit here and name. But I do have people that. That do know a lot about, you know, the gambling ring and NBA and stuff. And I didn't know about Beasley during when he was actually doing it.

[Amin Elhassan]

And just to be clear here, that's Moose talking, right? He's saying Malik Beasley did it. That's not us saying that.

[Tom Haberstroh]

I found out this past January 2025, and obviously now they are suffering having to let him walk in free agency and replace him with somebody like Duncan Robinson, who's not even close to the caliber player that I thought Malik Beasley was this year.

[Pablo Torre]

Damn. Whoa.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yo, this is one of my favorite things. Whenever we're doing content, Pablo, in my mind, Duncan Robinson sitting back saying, oh, a new episode of Pablo, Tori finds out, Let me watch. And he hears that. Like, what the did I do? I get on.

[Amin Elhassan]

So when I asked Mustafa Omar, who told him about Malik Beasley specifically, he kept claiming that this was something he saw on Reddit, which was kind of strange.

[Tom Haberstroh]

This is something that was dug up from Reddit. I mean, everything that I found and I tweet about, I only tweet about it because I find it publicly first.

[Amin Elhassan]

I know people, I know things. But also, I saw this on Reddit again.

[Pablo Torre]

Of course, we Madea's family reunion. This. We scanned through everything we could find on Reddit looking for a hidden Malik Beasley. Where is Malik Beasley here? We could find nothing resembling this prediction. And of course, by the way, to state the obvious again, if this was publicly noted anywhere, then we would have probably heard about it in the way that we heard about this tweet. It would have gone viral. It would have been surfaced the Prophecy would have been someone else's and not Moose's.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Can I play devil's advocate and say none of us knew Malik Beasley's dad and his mom and his grandfather were all actors.

[Amin Elhassan]

Yeah, it's fair point.

[Pablo Torre]

Fair. 1% seeded doubt to put into this.

[Amin Elhassan]

So then I started asking Mustafa Omar Moose about the Johnte Porter fanduel betting slip that he posted, which again, was placed on January 22, 2020, four months before the John Tay Porter investigation was ever public. Now, when I asked him about this, he became cageier than he'd been at any point in our conversation.

[Tom Haberstroh]

I said, I don't know much about the slip. Like I said, it was just sent to me from someone.

[Amin Elhassan]

But he said it was sent to him from someone else. It wasn't his betting slip. He just happened to get it and then post it onto his account. And this is where we should mention something we have not yet told Moose, which is that deep in our reporting, we found yet another screenshot. Yes, another one from Moose's private paywall discord, where he was trying to drum up business for his next meme, Coin, the sequel, not just National Coin association, which he apparently, you know, lost his shirt on the goal, this time, a quote, over 100 million market cap, end quote. And on November 27, 2024, he wrote explicitly, quote, this next project is going to have people involved that no other project would even be able to get their hands on. Some names that I can't even legally mention because they made so much money off a certain NBA gambling incident last season and are facing trials, but they will be involved in this.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So hold on, at this point in time, November 2024, the only gambling incident known confirmed in the NBA is John Tay Porter.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. In the Dante Porter story, the feds found this deeply sloppy private telegram chat. And the most memorable character in John Tay Porter's group chats was the owner of a deli. I mean, on Roosevelt island here in our city of New York. And this deli owner, who I mentioned at the top of the episode, was not merely a person that Jonte Porter owed, quote, significant gambling debts, too, according to federal prosecutors. I also remember this deli owner as a New Yorker because he had been previously embroiled in a scandal of a different kind. And this is the scandal that involved an unhoused woman who fell into the subway tracks as the F train was approaching. And as a result, she lost both of her legs. This woman sued, wound up settling with the MTA, which runs the New York City subway for $4 million. The person that she trusted to cash one of her final settlement checks for around $800,000, according to these legal documents, happens to be this same deli owner, what the. By the name of Amar Awade. And Amar allegedly took that check, the city's payback to again, a homeless, legless, wheelchair bound woman who was also suffering from mental illness. He took that check to his friend who was a bank manager, and then they got the $800,000 deposited into the account of his deli, which Amar denied in court in a case that was eventually dismissed, although he did admit that $80,000 did wind up in his personal account. So prosecutors, for the record here, alleged that he spent the woman's money on, quote, gambling trips and wedding expenses, including a bachelor party in Las Vegas and honeymooning in Turks and Caicos.

[Amin Elhassan]

This is as dark as it gets.

[Pablo Torre]

This story.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I missed the part where we were talking about Larsa Pippen. Things. Things were so light hearted back then.

[Pablo Torre]

What I want our audience to know is that what I started doing at this point was comb through every publicly accessible social media profile we had ever found for our guy, Moose. And while looking through the names of the people that Mustafa Omar is friends with on Facebook, I found one extremely familiar name.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Let me guess, Amar Awadeh.

[Pablo Torre]

Nailing this pronunciation.

[Amin Elhassan]

God damn it, that was good.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So he's not lying when he says I'm connected with a guy who's involved in the NBA's gambling incident.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, a certain NBA gambling incident. There, in fact, is a connection. We have just verified that they are literal Facebook friends. And furthermore, what I did with my life was I naturally plunged further into the Amar Awade rabbit hole. And this one brought me to a source that I encountered here in New York City who knew him from back when they were both frequenting these allegedly illegal private poker games in Manhattan around five to eight years ago. And my source says that this game that they were playing in actually took place in a private apartment. This is how this worked. Residential building, top floor, just blocks away from Madison Square Garden. Actually, it has since moved, but that's where it was at the time. And it's a sort of game where the minimum buy in is $2,500, aka the monthly allotment for weed, according to the trap rules that we encountered before. There is no maximum, it turns out, and it's otherwise full of lawyers and doctors and hedge fund managers and also, according to my source, several of the names on those Jonte Porter Group chats who also wound up getting arrested. One of those Porter associates who got arrested was a dealer at this poker game, I am told another dealer who went by the name Bruce. And both of those guys obviously also got ensnared in this probe. And anyhow, when I showed my source to again, fact check this profile, this Facebook profile of Amar Awade, what he immediately said without any knowledge of any of this episode. I didn't mention Mustafa Omar and how they're friends or anything. I showed him this photo and my source just immediately laughs over the phone and he identifies him as, oh, yeah, I. I have stories about this guy. And what my source told me is that even after Amar was identified as being involved in the Jonte Porter investigation, remember Dante Porter was banned for Life from the NBA. As of April 2024, Amar was still texting people trying to set up poker games. Quote from my source, I do remember thinking, is he so arrogant that he thinks he's above this? End quote. This takes us directly back to the phone call that Tom was having with the guy who loves Carmelo Anthony, who is Facebook friends with Amar, who had also just been telling you, Tom, I believe the following about the John Tay Porter betting slip screenshot that he tweeted out back in January of 2024.

[Tom Haberstroh]

I said I don't know much about the slip. Like I said, it was just sent to me from someone.

[Amin Elhassan]

But so here I had to do the most important thing in this conversation. I had to ask Moose about his connection to Amar directly. Are you friends with or do you know Amar Awade?

[Tom Haberstroh]

No.

[Amin Elhassan]

No.

[Tom Haberstroh]

No. Okay.

[Amin Elhassan]

Because I saw that your Facebook friends with Amar, and so I figured maybe that was somehow you could. You were associated with him.

[Tom Haberstroh]

No, that's.

[Pablo Torre]

It.

[Amin Elhassan]

Just no. Like, this guy's been super chatty this whole time. And when I bring up Amar Awade. Just one word. No. Which brings us back to the Facebook profile of Omar. Another photo that you can see on it at the top, the banner photo. It's a bit blurry. It's like someone is taking the photo from way back in the 300 section. And it's kind of zoomed in. At the center of this photo is a guy who looks like Amar standing courtside on the baseline at Madison Square Garden. And what's important here is that in this moment, this person is also dapping up a tall black dude dressed in all yellow. A yellow sweater with matching yellow shorts, wearing a baseball cap. The photo was uploaded. You can see it on the Facebook profile. The photo was uploaded on April 23, 2024. So this is during the 2024 NBA playoffs. So what do you do? You go to the game logs. You go to basketball reference schedule and results. You click just to see if the Knicks were playing anytime around that date on April 23, 2024. And you can see on that date in the Knicks schedule, April 22, they beat the Philadelphia 76ers in an extremely dramatic game at the Garden.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Fernstein gets it out to Anunoby DiVincenzo at three.

[Pablo Torre]

Bang, bang.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Knicks take a one point lead with 13 seconds remaining.

[Pablo Torre]

The Garden is shaking right now.

[Unnamed Speaker]

What an incredible sequence.

[Pablo Torre]

Rule of three. Rule of three. So I just gotta jump in here to point out that this game at Madison Square Garden happened five days after Jontay Porter got banned for life from the NBA, which means that it also happened while the feds were actively investigating Amar Awade, who was standing right there courtside for his role in that same historic gambling scandal. And now when you pull multiple angles on this specific play, what you can clearly see in retrospect is the identity of the tall black dude in all yellow, his name, when Amar Awade is dapping up in his Facebook banner photo after arguably the greatest play in modern Knicks history. Because, of course, it's Moose's goat, Carmelo Anthony.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Amazing.

[Pablo Torre]

He looks jubilant. He couldn't. It looks like he's the happiest day of his. I mean, look, you can really appreciate, by the way, that just the thread count on this yellow sweater in this photograph, and even on the broadcast, you can tell this is, I mean, looking great. All of which reminded us of something, something we had found pretty early on in our search for any tweet that had tagged Moose NBA. We had found an angle of this play of the three from the baseline shot off a cell phone. And the video credit was quote courtesy Moose NBA.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Get the out of here.

[Pablo Torre]

It's right there. Right there on the right side of your screen. This is the thing that hit us literally as we were sitting down to tape today.

[Amin Elhassan]

Now, let's watch this same play from the Madison Square Garden camera. That's looking straight out at the basket. So you can see the full baseline. And let's zoom in.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Enhance. Give me a little bit more. Can we get a little. A little bit more of a zoom there?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, my.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You see that? See the guy in blue right there?

[Pablo Torre]

And after countless more hours of Twitter and Facebook search, we realized something. The guy sitting next to Amar Awade, who's pictured holding his cell phone, which I can only assume is the cell phone he used to shoot the video of that, Dante DiVincenzo3 had actually identified himself on Twitter by name as the guy who taped it and sent it to moosenba. And we saw this because Cell Phone Guy, it turns out, was beefing with Barstool Sports, which had aggregated the video without giving either of them credit. And by now, as a student of the rule of three, Tom easily recognized Cell Phone guy. He was a third person we had noticed while combing through various Facebook albums, a person better known as Amar's brother, Omar Awade. And even though Moose denied even knowing Amar to Tom, we found more pictures, pictures of all three of these guys. Graduations, parties, weddings. We even found a video of Omar wearing a Sprewell jersey going to a Knicks game with Moose, who was wearing a Carmelo Anthony jersey that by now all of us had seen a lot. What's up, everybody?

[Tom Haberstroh]

It's your boy Omar, the newest member of spectators. On my way to the Knicks game. You see me decked out in the Supreme.

[Pablo Torre]

Had to duel to him.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Magic is in town, Just smoked him by 30, about to smoke him by another 30.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And I'm on the way.

[Tom Haberstroh]

Come roll with me.

[Pablo Torre]

At which point it became clear that moosenba, Twitter's Malik Beasley prophet, was more than just Facebook friends with alleged Johnte Porter co conspirator Amar Awade. Moose was his relative, his cousin.

[Amin Elhassan]

Meaning.

[Pablo Torre]

We had literally gone from Medea's family reunion to Mustafa's. This is where it takes us back now to the legal documents as we try to connect all the dots here. Right? So generally observing the following in the John Tay Porter legal documents, quote, a relative of the defendant, Amar Awade, whose identity is known to me, placed a $10,000 parlay bet through betting company One on the under for player ones, three pointers, assists and steals. It goes on to talk about how the relative won $85,000, netting a profit of $75,000. And so just saying that Amar Awade, in terms of the information he was sharing, who he was bringing in to the thing he was already caught up in. We don't know which family member it is. They're anonymous, according to federal prosecutors. But family is literally mentioned in the federal investigation a number of times.

[Amin Elhassan]

I had to follow up with Mustafa to make sure he had his story straight on this. So I asked him again, you did not get information on Malik Beasley from Amar Awade, who is part of the Porter case?

[Tom Haberstroh]

No, like I said, I got it off of Reddit.

[Amin Elhassan]

Do you have that Reddit forum that you got it from that you could show me?

[Tom Haberstroh]

I could probably find it. Yeah. Would you be fine with me searching it and then getting it to you on Twitter?

[Amin Elhassan]

Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great.

[Tom Haberstroh]

All right, let's do that song.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Despite the preponderance of evidence from his own posts and his own brags to having a connection to someone in this, he claims zero knowledge and that he got it from. He got it from Reddit.

[Amin Elhassan]

Yeah, he said he got it from Reddit and it was public. And after I hung up with Mustafa Omar, who promised me to hit me back on Twitter and send that Reddit post that would clear him of all of this and just say, hey, they had it. It wasn't me. What happened next was I logged back into my Twitter account and I DM'd him back. A reminder being like, hey, yeah, if you can just grab that Reddit post and send it back to me.

[Pablo Torre]

Bloop.

[Amin Elhassan]

I got an error message. That error message said, message not sent. Sending direct message failed. I thought my Internet was down or that he turned off his DMs. But nope, nope, guys, he had shut.

[Pablo Torre]

Down his account at 123-747-4849, lowercase A. We hardly knew ye.

[Amin Elhassan]

And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna check his Facebook profile. And guess what? That two guys was taken down seconds after we got off that phone. All of it gone.

[Pablo Torre]

Unfortunately for Moose, we also love screenshots. So this is. This is the part where we need to just sort of, like, take a step back, maybe breathe, just think about what it is that we're finding out here today. Because the timeline has the Jontay Porter betting slip, right? This is now what Moose had posted. That was dated. What? Tom?

[Amin Elhassan]

The betting slip, if you look at it closely, it says January 22, 2024. Okay? The game one in the Johntay Porter case came four days later, January 26. So that's important here, because this actually predates that game one, which is to.

[Pablo Torre]

Say, I mean, that what we are circling here, what we've been exhaustively reporting here actually is ostensibly an expansion of the scope that the Eastern District of New York, the U.S. attorney's office, had published, which started four days after this. But here we have all of these connections to indicate that actually the dude who's ensnared in that thing, Amar, is connected to the dude who posted this thing from four days before that.

[Amin Elhassan]

So remember, we have the betting slip January 22nd. We have game one of this inquiry with the feds on January 26th. Then five days later, we get a flurry of unusual betting activity on Malik Beasley's unders for his two and a half rebounds at a sports book that flagged this to ESPN. So we have within less than 10 days, the betting slip, the first Johnte Porter game, and the Malik Beasley game. We have to note the timeline here that this January 31st game is. It's not like a random game in terms of the timeline of things. It puts it within basically a week.

[Pablo Torre]

It's all when this stuff was happening. In our example, again, of the rule of three, this is how this all was unfolding. What we've established in that timeline is that there are some things that are documented and undeniable and confirmed in terms of, yes, connecting or at the very least, moving the dots close together. They're all conspicuously proximate to each other. And by the way, we've also been making calls about Malik Beasley. Malik Beasley's attorney, Steve Haney. Tom, he didn't send us a statement. Right.

[Amin Elhassan]

Here's the statement from Steve Haney. Presuming someone is guilty when they haven't been charged with the crime, let alone convicted, is a dangerous narrative. The mere allegations have caused irreparable harm to Malik's image, reputation and career.

[Pablo Torre]

The note I want to get to at the end here, by the way, is that when it comes to. So what explains all of this? Right. Our investigation continues. It does. It continues because we have reason to believe that these are not coincidences, that these are connections. We have reason to believe that when it comes to unusual betting action coming in on an under, Malik Beasley winds up hitting the over pretty hard through his level of hunger and play. But you also have moose and Amar and this Facebook friendship and these details and these pictures courtside, that we should not say what we are tempted to, but we should present, in the words of Denzel Washington in two guns, one thing might be important for everybody going forward.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Tell us about your trip.

[Pablo Torre]

Lawyer. What's the big deal? Lawyer. Nothing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The DA know about you and Papi Glover.

[Pablo Torre]

Lawyer. Lawyer.

[Unnamed Speaker]

They know you were at his ranch.

[Amin Elhassan]

I know I need a lawyer.

[Pablo Torre]

And on that note, this is where I should probably mention that the lawyer for Amar Awade, who is currently on house arrest, declined comment to PTFO, as did the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York, which is an entity that I now wonder about, too. Because what I found out today is that our moose hunt has actually expanded the FBI's scope of the Johntay Porter scandal, the betting scandal beyond what the government itself has been able to publicly establish, at least. And we have connected it now to the prophecy of the Malik Beasley investigation. If not, Malik Beasley noted, garbage time, God himself. But maybe my biggest takeaway here as we try to square that particular circle concerns what it really takes to investigate a scandal like this in the age of legalized sports gambling. And legalized sports gambling is obviously everywhere now. DraftKings was the sponsor of this show for the first year and a half of our existence. They remain the major partner to Meadowlark Media, and to their credit, by the way, they want to catch bad actors. They are incentivized to try and flag those suspicious bits of betting activity. That's how a lot of this stuff is being caught in real time. And yet this age has spawned a wave of conflicting incentives and new vulnerabilities. And this general confluence, in the words of Moose's discord of hoops, gambling and crypto. Which means that I am left here at the end, presenting my Internet brained, exhausted friends Tom and Amin with a disturbing truth about ourselves, the characters everybody needed to study this entire time we're on the place that we all say we want to leave but clearly haven't. NBA, Twitter, the Godfather 3.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in.

[Pablo Torre]

The rule of the Godfather 3 this has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time. Sam.