Two wide-ranging and long-running investigations into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games were supported in some cases by four major New York Mafia families, federal prosecutors have alleged.
FBI director reveals Billups and Rozier arrested in gambling investigation
FBI Director Kash Patel details an investigation that resulted in the arrest of more than 30 people in connection with an illegal gambling scheme.
- The FBI has announced arrests in a massive sports betting and illegal gambling scandal involving the Mafia.
- Four of New York’s major Mafia families are said to have been involved in long-term criminal activities.
- NBA coach Chauncey Billups and player Terry Rozier were among those arrested in the investigation.
New York’s notorious crime family is making headlines again.
La Cosa Nostra, the old Italian mafia with its oaths of allegiance, nicknames and lucrative gambling rackets, is not going away, as the October 23 arrests and indictments allegedly show in startling detail.
Announcing one of the biggest sports betting and illegal gambling scandals in decades, FBI Director Kash Patel said Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat forward Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones were all arrested as part of two long and wide-ranging investigations into illegal sports betting and fraudulent poker games, some of which were supported by four major New York mafia groups. family.
Patel and the charging documents detail how Mafia members allegedly used high-tech tools, along with old-fashioned extortion schemes, to orchestrate key aspects of their criminal activities.
“We not only cracked down on the wrongdoings committed by the perpetrators on the NBA stage, but we also entered and carried out justice against La Casa Nostra, which includes the Bonano, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families,” Patel said at a press conference.
“This scam is mind-boggling,” Patel added. “It’s not hundreds of dollars, it’s not thousands of dollars, it’s not tens of thousands of dollars, it’s not even millions of dollars. We’re talking about fraud, theft and robbery in the tens of millions of dollars over years of investigations.”
Behind the headlines, here’s what we know about the so-called New York Mafia Family, which has been covertly involved in international sports betting operations and other crimes in recent decades, despite the Department of Justice and FBI’s dedicated eradication campaigns.
“Joe Bananas” and Bonano “Crime Family”
Like other Italian crime families, the Bonano family, one of New York’s original “Five Families,” has Sicilian roots that immigrated to the United States in the 1930s. Part of that spill was connected to the “Castellammarese War,” which traces back to Sicily, an island just off the tip of the boot that makes up southern Italy.
As with other mafia families, nicknames are commonly used to easily identify members, with some having similar names to account for family connections. Under the long tenure of Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonanno, the family branched out into loan sharking, drug trafficking, prostitution, and gambling of all kinds in the United States.
Like other major Mafia crime families, the Bonanno family suffered from turf wars, internal succession disputes, and targeted investigations and prosecutions.
The Justice Department and FBI efforts, centered on their New York offices, have spent more than half a century tracking the Bonanno family and other families in an effort to weaken the organization and undermine its leadership. They stepped up their efforts in 1970 by enacting the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Ordinance (RICO), which allowed them to track the entire hierarchy of criminal organizations.
Such efforts have continued.
In January 2018, federal prosecutors indicted Joseph Cammarano Jr., the “acting boss of the Bonanno organized crime family,” and nine other members on racketeering and related charges, including extortion, loan sharking, wire and mail fraud, drug distribution, and murder conspiracy.
“Teflon Don” and Gambino “Crime Family”
The Gambino family and their former leader John Gotti, a.k.a. “The Dapper Don” and “The Teflon Don,” are perhaps the most notorious of New York’s five crime families, and the most often imitated group in numerous Hollywood TV shows and movies.
This organization also traces its origins to early Italian and Sicilian gangs in New York, before consolidating in the 1930s to become one of the major Five Families. The family became extremely powerful under Carlo Gambino’s 20-year iron-fisted leadership beginning in the late 1950s, engaging in crimes such as labor extortion, loan sharking, and gambling.
Gotti, who took his name after failed attempts by the FBI and Justice Department to convict him, made headlines for taking his family’s gambling business high-tech, internationally and overseas. He was also known for his rise to the top, including a 1985 mob raid on 70-year-old mobster Paul Castellano. The FBI said he was considered the successor to recently deceased Gambino boss Aniello Delacroce, who was Gotti’s boss’s boss at the time.
Teflon Don was eventually convicted in 1992 of ordering the murders of two top mob leaders and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. New York’s FBI director said at the time: “Don is Velcroed and all the charges are hanging on him.”
But Mr. Gotti’s sons continued with the business. Gotti died in prison in June 2002.
“Lucky Luciano” and Genovese “Crime Family”
Less splashy and bloody than the Gambino family, the Genovese family is historically considered the most powerful of New York’s five families, with tentacles extending into New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.
This organization also grew out of the infamous Castellammarese Wars of the early 1930s, and under the leadership of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Vito Genovese, and others, built a lucrative business in extortion, extortion, gambling, sports betting, and labor union corruption.
For more than two decades starting in the 1980s, the Genovese family was run by Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, also known as “The Oddfather.” He earned his name by feigning insanity and for a time evading prosecution by limping unshaven through Greenwich Village in a filthy bathrobe and muttering incoherently.
Numerous Justice Department investigations over the decades have targeted the Genovese family, which operated illegal gambling halls, sports betting operations, and online gambling. In one case in 2014, a member admitted to managing sports betting “packages” through an offshore sports betting operation.
In March 2018, Salvatore “Fat Sal” Delligatti, a member of the Genovese crime family, was convicted in the Eastern District of New York on a series of illegal gambling charges similar to those announced by Patel on October 23. However, he was also found guilty of attempted murder by aiding and abetting racketeering in connection with a large-scale bookmaking and sports betting operation in which he took bets from gamblers, particularly in Manhattan and Queens. Offshore cable room. ”
Since at least May 2012, the Genovese and Bonanno families have been working together to operate a lucrative illegal gambling house hidden inside a coffee shop called the Grand Café in Lynbrook, according to the Department of Justice.
Tommy “Three Finger Brown” Lucchies and Lucchies “Crime Family”
Although not as well-known and powerful as the Gambino and Genovese families, the Lucchese family initially rose to prominence through its involvement in labor extortion, including control of labor unions in industries such as the trucking and apparel industries.
Boss Tommy Lucchese helped the family secure a seat on the infamous Mafia Commission that went on trial in 1986.
Lucchese’s biography at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas says: “Smart, insightful and fearless, he rose to prominence during the Prohibition era for his muscle and remained in power through the mid-20th century through careful maneuvering, a strong business mind and gangster political acumen.”
As a teenager, Lucchese worked in a factory and lost part of his right hand in an industrial accident, earning him the nickname “Three-Finger Brown” after Hall of Fame pitcher Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown.
The family eventually turned to heroin trafficking and murder-for-hire. And we focused on gambling and sports betting.
In a 2025 Justice Department case, Lucchese’s family pleaded guilty to running a massive illegal online gambling operation that had been going on since the 2000s, taking bets from hundreds of people every week and generating millions of dollars in profits annually.
mafia in movies
Bonano: Hollywood portrayed the Bonanno family in 1972’s The Valachi Documents, starring Charles Bronson as Joe Valachi. He was the first Bonano soldier to publicly break the omerta, the code of silence, and testify about the inner workings of La Cosa Nostra.
gambino: Hollywood loved to depict the life and criminal trials of John Gotti, including in the 1996 HBO drama “Gotti,” which chronicled the rise and fall of the flamboyant, media-savvy boss.
genovese: Although fictional, the Corleone family of The Godfather trilogy (1972-1990) is believed to be primarily inspired by the Genovese family (and some of the Bonanno family), particularly Vito Genovese’s ambitions to control the Mafia Commission and control illegal drug trafficking routes. “The Godfather II” also draws parallels between Genovese’s exile in Italy and his eventual return.
Lucchese: One of the most successful mob films produced by Hollywood, 1990’s “Goodfellas” was directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the book “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi. The cast includes Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci (Oscar winner), and Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a member of the Lucchese family who attempts to rise within the organization through robbery, extortion, illegal gambling, and the infamous Lufthansa heist in New York.
