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Tech used in rigged poker games linked to mob and NBA

admin - Latest News - October 24, 2025
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NBC News’ Rob Wile and “Here’s the Scoop” co-host Brian Cheung discuss the technology alleged to have been used to execute a multistate, rigged poker operation involving NBA stars and organized crime families that sounds like it’s straight out of Hollywood.



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Oct. 24, 2025, 3:35 PM EDTBy David K. LiAssociates of four of New York’s infamous “five families” crime syndicates allegedly backed a multimillion-dollar poker con that used elaborate technology to cheat unsuspecting players — and brought rare, unappreciated light to the mob’s shadowy operations, officials said.Associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families were named in a sweeping indictment that also ensnared Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, and one-time NBA journeyman Damon Jones, according to prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York.Federal authorities didn’t hesitate Thursday to pin the poker scam on La Cosa Nostra, showing that organized crime is still a modern law enforcement concern even after FBI operations in the 1980s and 1990s seemed to decimate the five families.”The mafia … it’s still a thing,” said Geoff Schumacher, vice president of exhibits and programs for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. The mob works best when the public knows less about the people involved, according to Schumacher, who called famed bosses like the late Dapper Don, John Gotti, an “aberration.” “They didn’t want the general public to be well-versed in their business. The one guy who kind of defied that whole thing was John Gotti because he just believed that he was untouchable,” Schumacher said.A dozen mafia associates played a role in the poker scam, prosecutors said.Ernest Aiello and Julius “Jay” Ziliani were linked to the Bonanno crime family.Louis “Lou Ap” Apicella, Ammar “Flapper Poker” Awawdeh, John Gallo, Joseph Lanni, Nicholas Minucci, Angelo Ruggiero Jr. were associates of the Gambino crime family Matthew “The Wrestler” Daddino and Lee Fama were identified as associates of the Genovese crime family.Seth Trustman was linked to the Lucchese crime family.And Thomas “Juice” Gelardo was called an associate of the Bonanno crime family and later an associate of the Genovese crime family, according to the indictment.Gambling “is an easy pinch” and bread-and-butter income source for the mob, the author and former Gambino mobster Louis Ferrante told NBC News.”I wasn’t at all surprised,” Ferrante said. “Gambling has been a mafia mainstay for the last 100 years. With all the RICO indictments that put so many people away for the rest of their lives (in the 1980s and 90s), the mob has sort of scaled back and they stuck with loan sharking and gambling because if you get busted, as long as there’s no violence involved, nobody’s beat up or threatened, it’s a slap on the wrist.”He added: “These guys could do a nickel maybe in the can, as opposed to doing 30, 40 years or life sentences.” Organized crime soldiers and associates are busted all the time but rarely make news, said Seth Zuckerman, New York criminal defense lawyer and former Brooklyn prosecutor.“It’s not what it used to be, but it definitely still exists,” Zuckerman said. “In underground poker games and things like that, where you need protection, you need a source of cash, the mob still has its involvement.”With legal online gambling, users are required to put up all of the money before they place a bet but the crime families operate outside of the rules by acting as an intermediary, offering people the ability to place bets on credit.”There’s still a need for that,” Zuckerman said. “There are people who want to bet on credit, which as you know with legalized operations, you really can’t do. So that’s part of the mob’s territory.” Federal action against Billups and Jones spill into two separate indictments covering poker and insider sports betting information.The alleged mafia members are only tied to the alleged poker scheme. But the mob does have a long history of involvement in sports betting and poker.The most famous sports betting scandal in American history, when the 1919 Chicago White Sox threw the World Series, was allegedly engineered by gambler Arnold Rothstein, a mentor to early Genovese boss Charlie “Lucky” Luciano.The Colombo crime family had alleged connections to NBA officials in the 1990s and early 2000s.Even though sports betting is largely legal in most states, that still didn’t stop several Gambino soldiers from taking illegal bets in New York, state prosecutors said last year in a 17-person indictment.The Lucchese crime family had alleged ties to a racketeering, gambling and money laundering operation out of New Jersey poker rooms that was taken down early this year, officials said.The New York City area’s “five families” include the four mentioned in the indictment plus the Colombo crime family.FBI Director Kash Patel said federal law enforcement had “entered and executed a system of justice against La Cosa Nostra to include the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families.” Old-fashioned mob muscle ensured victims paid up from their losses in rigged games, officials said.”With respect to poker games held in the New York City area, members of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese Crime Families, used threats and intimidation to assure payments of debts” in games organized by defendants Awawdeh, Trustman, Zhen Hu and Robert Stroud, the indictment said.All crime families involved “received proceeds” from the crooked games, the indictment said.The mafia’s alleged use of cutting-edge technology that included hidden cameras and X-rays shouldn’t surprise anyone, Ferrante said, because a mob boss can reach out to experts as easily as anyone else.”The mob moves with the technology,” Ferrante said. “Don’t think that some capo, ‘Frankie nine fingers,’ or ‘Joe the butcher’ is making these moves. They’re getting some geek who knows technology and he’s doing it for them.” And poker is no different from fuel, concrete and construction when it comes to wise guy involvement, according to Ferrante, the author of “Borgata: Clash of Titans: a History of the American Mafia.””The mob only has multiple families involved when it becomes something like gasoline, when they’re doing multimillions of dollars,” Ferrante said. “Concrete, when they were pouring all the concrete in New York; the windows, when they were putting in all the new energy efficient windows in the 90s; that’s (when) all the families get involved because it’s so big and there’s so much money involved that you can’t, one family can’t keep it to themselves. “He added: “So when you see four (of the five crime) families involved, you know that this is a huge racket.”David K. LiSenior Breaking News Reporter
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Oct. 24, 2025, 2:56 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 24, 2025, 3:00 PM EDTBy Alexandra MarquezOne day before early voting begins in the New York mayoral race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani condemned the “racist, baseless” attacks he’s faced in recent days, saying the attacks exemplify the islamophobia Muslims all over New York face every day.”I have sought to be the candidate fighting for every single New Yorker, not simply the Muslim candidate,” Mamdani told reporters gathered outside of a mosque in the Bronx. “I thought that if I could build a campaign of universality, I could define myself as the leader I aspire to be, one representing every New Yorker, no matter their skin color or religion, no matter where they were born.””And I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani added, appearing to grow emotional. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.” Mamdani, who currently represents parts of Queens in the New York State Assembly, would be the city’s first Muslim mayor.His comments come one day after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo —who lost to Mamdani in the June Democratic primary and is now running as an independent — faced criticism for remarks he made about Mamdani on a radio program.On Thursday, Cuomo appeared to agree with a conservative radio host who said that Mamdani would cheer if a terror attack happened while he was mayor.A Cuomo campaign spokesperson later told NBC News that Cuomo did not agree with the radio host’s comment.Earlier this week, in the final debate ahead of the Nov. 4 mayoral election, Mamdani defended himself against attacks from Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa that he didn’t have a strong plan to combat antisemitism in New York City.The city needs “a leader who takes [antisemitism] seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage,” Mamdani told viewers.He also accused the other candidates of accusing him of antisemitism in part because he’s a Muslim.After Sliwa accused Mamdani of supporting a “global jihad,” Mamdani said, “I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad. That is not something that I have said, and that continues to be ascribed to me. And frankly, I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election.”“They view you as the arsonist who fanned the flames of antisemitism,” Sliwa had told Mamdani earlier in the debate, referring to members of his own family. “They cannot suddenly accept the fact that you’re coming like a firefighter and you’re going to put out these flames.”His identity as a Muslim is something Mamdani also referenced during a podcast released this week.“I do think that Andrew Cuomo, there are a number of things that he has said or done that he would not have done if I was not a Muslim candidate,” Mamdani told the hosts of the “Flagrant” podcast.In his speech Friday, Mamdani also decried what he described as a post-9/11 rise in Islamaphobia in New York City.”For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate that are acceptable in this city,” he said. “Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable.””In an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship, it seems that islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement,” he added.Mamdani also thanked his supporters who have “rushed to my defense over these past few days,” but said he was thinking, “of those Muslims in this city who do not have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee.”Mamadani has faced allegations of antisemitism for months, even before he became the Democratic nominee for mayor.The allegations largely centered on his criticism of Israel’s conduct in its war in Gaza, where over 60,000 people have been killed since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, according to health authorities in Gaza.He has also faced criticism over his refusal earlier in the race to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada.”Cuomo referenced this during Wednesday’s debate, telling Mamdani, “You’re the savior of the Jewish people? You won’t denounce ‘globalize the intifada,’ which means ‘kill Jews.'”Mamdani said in June that he didn’t use the phrase, but that mayors shouldn’t “police speech.” The New York Times reported in July that Mamdani said he would “discourage” use of the phrase moving forward.Mamdani has also sought to find commonality with the Jewish community, meeting with Jewish leaders, courting Hassidic voters in Yiddish and attending Rosh Hashanah celebrations.In his speech on Friday, Mamdani said that he has learned over the last few years that for Muslims in New York City, “safety could only be found in the shadows of our city [and] it is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace their full identities.””If we were to emerge from those shadows … it is in those shadows that we must leave our faith. These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught again and again,” Mamdani said. “Over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams.”Adams, the incumbent mayor of New York City, suspended his independent campaign for governor in September and endorsed Cuomo on Thursday.The mayoral election is on Nov. 4, with early voting starting in the five boroughs on Saturday.Alexandra MarquezAlexandra Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 6, 2025, 10:27 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 6, 2025, 3:11 PM EDTBy Gary Grumbach and Dareh GregorianIllinois filed a lawsuit Monday in an attempt to block the Trump administration from deploying federalized National Guard troops on the streets of Chicago. “The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the Illinois attorney general’s office wrote in the filing, which names President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll as defendants.“The Trump administration’s illegal actions already have subjected and are subjecting Illinois to serious and irreparable harm,” the suit says.The White House maintained Trump’s actions are lawful.“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like [Illinois Gov. JB] Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets. President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.Representatives for the Justice Department, U.S. Army and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.The legal action comes after a federal judge in Oregon issued two separate orders over the weekend temporarily blocking the Trump administration from sending federalized National Guard members from California — or any other state — to Portland, Oregon. Portland and Chicago are part of a wave of Democrat-run cities and states that Trump has targeted with federal troops.“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, wrote in one of her rulings.The suit brought on behalf of Illinois and the city of Chicago makes similar arguments about federal overreach.“The Federalization Order’s deployment of federalized military forces to protect federal personal and property from ‘violent demonstrations’ that ‘are occurring or are likely to occur’ represents the exact type of intrusion on State power that is at the heart of the Tenth Amendment,” the suit says.“The deployment of federalized National Guard, including from another state, infringes on Illinois’s sovereignty and right to self-governance. It will cause only more unrest, including harming social fabric and community relations and increasing the mistrust of police. It also creates economic harm, depressing business activities and tourism that not only hurt Illinoisians but also hurt Illinois’s tax revenue,” the suit says.The city and the state want a judge to declare the administration’s federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States, any state National Guard, or deployment of the U.S. military in Illinois as “unconstitutional and/or unlawful.” Trump had been threatening to send the National Guard into Chicago for months, and gave the green light to do so over the weekend. “Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like [Illinois Gov. JB] Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has authorized 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.The suit denies there’s any emergency in the city or that there’s a need for federal troops. “The supposed current emergency is belied by the fact that Trump’s Chicago troop deployment threats began more than ten years ago,” the suit says, pointing to a 2013 Trump tweet where he wrote, “we need our troops on the streets of Chicago, not in Syria.” He’s since worked to “demonize cities where Democrats had been elected as leaders,” and provoked unrest in the state by surging federal law enforcement to target undocumented immigrants and protesters outside of an immigration detention facility in the suburb of Broadview, the suit says.”Among other things, Trump and Noem have sent a surge of SWAT-tactic trained federal agents to Illinois to use unprecedented, brute force tactics for civil immigration enforcement; federal agents have repeatedly shot chemical munitions at groups that included media and legal observers outside the Broadview facility; and dozens of masked, armed federal agents have paraded through downtown Chicago in a show of force and control,” the suit says. “The community’s horror at these tactics and their significant consequences have resulted in entirely foreseeable protests,” it added.Pritzker, in an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said federal authorities “are the ones that are making it a war zone” in Chicago. Trump has threatened to send the National Guard into other prominent Democratic-run cities against their wishes as well, including New York, Baltimore and New Orleans. The warning comes as the rate of serious crimes has dropped dramatically in those cities and in Chicago in recent years. Statistics from the Chicago Police Department show the murder rate through the end of September is down 29% compared to the same time period last year. Overall crime is down 13%, according to CPD. Trump previously deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In early September, a federal judge in California ruled that Trump’s deployment of Marines and National Guard members there was illegal. D.C.’s Democratic attorney general has also sued to challenge the deployment of troops in the capital.
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