‘The Mob Is Back!’ Former FBI Agent Marvels at Revelations of Mafia Resurgence in NBA Gambling Scandal

Former FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano marveled at the apparent resurgence of the American Mafia on Fox News, remarking on the allegations against several crime families connected to the NBA gambling scandal.

Gagliano was part of the panel on Thursday morning’s episode of America’s Newsroom to react to the bombshell story about several notable arrests in the pro basketball world for an alleged illegal gambling scheme.

Among those arrested were Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, both taken into custody by federal law enforcement Thursday. Rozier was arrested in Orlando the morning after the Heat’s season-opener loss to the Orlando Magic and allegedly participated in suspicious betting activity during a game he played in March 2023.

Billups is accused of playing a role in an illegal Mafia-connected poker operation, which investigators say included having pro basketball players involved to make the games appear more legitimate and advanced technology to cheat like rigged card shuffling machines and X-ray readers to peek at cards facedown on the table.

The scheme went beyond just illegal gambling, according to officials working on the case, who told reporters that the games started in 2019 and took place in the Hamptons, Manhattan, Miami, and Las Vegas, netting the perpetrators millions in profits.

When some victims lost massive amounts of money and refused to pay, the Mafia defendants allegedly engaged in violence. The Gambino, Bonnano, and Genovese crime families — three of the five groups considered part of the infamous “Five Families” of Italian-American Mafia crime families — are accused of masterminding the gambling operation.

Anchor Bill Hemmer asked Gagliano for his reaction to the latest developments, and he replied that he thought “the lede was buried” in most reporting thus far:

Bill, I have to say I think the lede was buried. I mean, they’re gonna show pictures of Jones and Rozier and Billups and the NBA logo, because obviously that’s what kinda sucks everybody in, where you go, “Wow, these are rich people, they’re famous people, and they were involved in illegal gambling activity.”

Here’s the buried lede: it’s the fact that the mob is back! We’ve long thought of La Cosa Nostra, the Five Families of New York — and I worked on the Gambino squad when I was an FBI agent — as being on way out. Well, three-fifths of them — only the Luccheses and the Columbos are sitting down right now saying, “how did we not get a piece of this?”

But this is a fascinating case, and 31 subjects in one of them and six in the other — this is going to be an interesting case to follow going forward.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.