Federal prosecutors secured indictments against 26 people, accusing them of rigging college basketball games in America and pro contests in China, according to court papers unsealed in Philadelphia on Thursday.

The suspects face a slew of charges that include alleged bribery in sports, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aiding and abetting.

Indictments unsealed in Philadelphia named 26 defendants, who U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said “perpetrated a transnational criminal scheme to fix NCAA Division I men’s basketball games as well as professional Chinese Basketball Association games.”

Those charged include several former college basketball players: Alberto Laureano, Arlando Arnold, Simeon Cottle, Kevin Cross, Bradley Ezewiro, Shawn Fulcher, Carlos Hart, Markeese Hastings, Cedquavious Hunter, Oumar Koureissi, Da’Sean Nelson, Demond Robinson, Camian Shell, Dyquavion Short, Airion Simmons, Jalen Terry, Corey Hines, Diante Smith, Antonio Blakeney, Isaiah Adams, Micawber Etienne and Elijah Gray.

Trainers Jalen Smith and Roderick Winkler and “high-stakes sports gamblers” Marves Fairley and Shane Hennen were also named in the indictments.

Metcalf said “the integrity of sport itself and everything that sports represent to us, hard work, determination and fairness” was threatened by these defendants.

“We allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of NCAA players, alumni and professional bettors who fixed gains across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain,” Metcalf told reporters Thursday.

Fixers “engaged in a point-shaving scheme involving more than 39 players on more than 17 different NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams who then fixed and attempted to fix more than 29” games for millions of dollars in bets, the indictment said.

The alleged fixed games include contests in China and players in the U.S. who. the indictment said, manipulated contests involving Nicholls State, Tulane, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, LaSalle, Fordham, Buffalo, DePaul, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Eastern Michigan and Alabama State.

The defendants are accused of fixing or attempting to fix the final scores of 29 games in what could be the most sweeping college basketball scandal since the 1951 point-shaving scheme involving several New York City schools.

Prosecutors say the alleged sports gambling conspiracy began in September 2022 when the defendants first started to bribe players in the Chinese Basketball Association to engage in “point shaving,” when someone is paid to manipulate a game’s final margin of victory and not necessarily the win-loss outcome.

Fairley and Hennen initially targeted Blakeney, who was playing for the CBA’s Jiangsu Dragons at the time, prosecutors said.

Blakeney, who had played for LSU, “agreed to participate in the scheme and then recruited other players from Jiangsu,” according to court papers.

In a March 6, 2023, game, Blakeney’s Dragons were 11.5-point underdogs to the Guangdong Southern Tigers. Fairley and Hennen bet $198,3000 via BetRivers Sportsbook on the favorites to cover that spread, authorities said.

Blakeney, who averaged 32 points per game that season, scored just 11 in that contest, leading to a 127-96 spread-covering win for the Tigers.

“Blakeney underperformed in and influenced the game as he and the fixers had agreed,” the indictment said.

The indictment went on to cite other games allegedly fixed by Blakeney.

And then in April 2023, after the CBA season had finished, Fairley “placed a package into Antonio Blakeney’s storage unit in Florida, which contained nearly $200,000 in cash, representing bribe payments and proceeds from the fixed CBA games,” according to the indictment.

The scheme moved to college basketball games in the United States during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, prosecutors said, as Blakeney allegedly “agreed to recruit NCAA players who would accept bribe payments,” court papers said.

Payments “ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game” were made to the American college players, court documents said.

The players and games targeted in this alleged scheme tended to be at lesser known programs, though defendants Terry, Nelson and Etienne took their alleged dives for DePaul of the powerful Big East Conference.

Those Blue Demons played poorly by design in a Feb. 24, 2024, game against Georgetown and accepted more payments to underperform in losses against Butler and St. John’s that benefited gamblers, the indictment said.

There were attempts to buy off players from Saint Louis, LaSalle and Fordham, members of the Atlantic 10 Conference, generally considered one of the best leagues outside traditional powerhouses of the Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, ACC and SEC.

The effort to rig a LaSalle-St. Bonaventure game on Feb. 21, 2024 was among the few fails of the scheme, prosecutors said. The fixers offered unnamed LaSalle players “bribe payments to underperform in and influence the first half” of that game, according to the indictment.

The gamblers bet $247,000 on the Bonnies to win the first half by at least 5.5 points but LaSalle was actually on top, 36-28, at intermission.

It wasn’t clear, in the indictment, if players refused to intentionally underperform or just failed in efforts to throw the first half. A spokesperson for Metcalf declined to elaborate.

And in another instance of a rare losing bet, gamblers had hoped Gray would scuttle his own Fordham Rams in a Feb. 23, 2024 game against the Duquesne Dukes, who were 3.5-point favorites. Gray, who averaged 8.4 points per game that season, scored just 3 points that day but Fordham pulled off a 79-67 upset.

“I tried,” Gray said in a text message to one of the ringleaders, Jalen Smith, who was remarkably sympathetic to the player who failed to fail enough.

“You did your job for sure,” Smith texted.

“There’s nine other players on the court, there’s coaches and there’s referees,” Metcalf said. “Now in basketball, one player could substantially influence a game in ways. in other sports, you cannot. But it’s not a guarantee. But by and large, the scheme was very successful.”

This sweeping FBI investigation marks the latest gambling scandal to rock high-level U.S. sports.

NBA journeyman Terry Rozier was arrested on Oct. 23 and accused of conspiring with gamblers to pass on insider knowledge for wagers.

Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were arrested in November and accused of working with gamblers to bet on individual pitches they threw during games.

Sports gambling, once illegal in every state other than Nevada, has been taking off since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 struck down a federal law that required states to ban betting on games.

Now there’s some form of legalized sports betting in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

The proliferation of sports betting and payments to college athletes — for their name, image and likeness (NIL) — has made for an environment that makes match fixing possible, according to Metcalf.

“I will say that the evidence in this case shows that the monetization of college athletics and athletics generally … furthered the enterprise in this case,” said Metcalf, a former Princeton soccer player.

“But it’s complicated, right? I mean, as we allege in the indictment, certain players were targeted because they were somewhat missing out on NIL money.”