David Purdum | ESPN

Twenty men have been charged in a point-shaving scheme involving 39 college basketball players on 17 NCAA Division I teams, leading to 29 games being fixed, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Fifteen of the defendants played college basketball during the 2023-24 and/or 2024-25 seasons, according to the indictment. Two of the players named in the indictment, Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavian Short, were sanctioned in November by the NCAA for fixing New Orleans games.

Four of the players charged — Simeon Cottle, Carlos Hart, Camian Shell and Oumar Koureissi — have played for their current teams in the past week. The allegations against Hart, Shell and Koureissi stem from their previous schools, while Cottle’s alleged incident occurred in the 2023-24 season.

“This was a massive scheme that enveloped the world of college basketball, this was a significant and rampant corruption of college athletics.”

• David Metcalf, US Attorney said in a news conference

Camian Shell, North Carolina A& T 

The other five defendants were described by authorities as fixers. At least two of the defendants, Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, were also charged in a federal indictment in the Eastern District of New York centered on gambling schemes in the NBA.

Former NBA player Antonio Blakeney was named but not charged in the indictment. The indictment describes Blakeney as being “charged elsewhere.”

The scheme, according to the 70-page indictment, began around September 2022 and initially was focused on fixing games in the Chinese Basketball Association. The group later targeted college basketball games, offering bribes to college players ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 to compromise games for betting purposes, according to the indictment.

“In placing these wagers on games they had fixed, the defendants defrauded sportsbooks, as well as individual sports bettors, who were all unaware that the defendants had corruptly manipulated the outcome of these games that should have been decided fairly, based on genuine competition and the best efforts of the players,” the indictment said.

Metcalf called it a “pretty pervasive corruption scheme” that he viewed as “historic.”

Following the release of the indictment, NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement that the NCAA enforcement staff has opened betting integrity investigations into approximately 40 players from 20 schools over the past year.

“Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA. We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports,” Baker said. “The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA. Through helpful collaboration and with industry regulators, we have finished or have open investigations into almost all of the teams in today’s indictment.”

Baker also called for states, regulators and gaming companies to “eliminate threats to integrity — such as collegiate prop bets — to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors.”