Hong Kong’s television media have long shown a special fondness for the National Basketball Association (NBA), broadcasting its games almost daily. Unwittingly, however, this blanket coverage may have encouraged the public to engage in betting on a league now embroiled in a massive game-fixing and fraud scandal.
On Oct 23, the director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kash Patel, announced a sweeping investigation into one of the most egregious sports gambling cases in history. The operation was allegedly controlled by New York’s most powerful mafia families and involved tens of millions of dollars in game-fixing and fraud. The news of this scandal, which implicated current and former NBA players and coaches, sent shockwaves across the United States.
In one instance, investigators alleged that player Terry Rozier informed his co-conspirators that he would leave a game early by feigning an injury. This inside information allowed them to place over $200,000 in bets that he would not reach his expected statistical totals. Rozier was arrested the following morning at an Orlando hotel, where he and his associates were reportedly counting their winnings.
Both Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers’ head coach Chauncey Billups were arrested and charged in separate criminal schemes related to illegal sports betting. The alleged conspiracy reportedly spanned from March 2023 to March 2024, during which the accused utilized confidential information obtained through their connections within the NBA to place bets.
It’s particularly deplorable that a figure of Billups’ stature is involved. An NBA Hall of Fame player who won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, when he was named Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals, Billups is in his fifth year as the Portland Trail Blazers’ head coach. His complicity grievously besmirches the NBA’s international reputation. This case has been described as “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became legalized in the US”, and it serves as a stark reflection of the nation’s deteriorating ethical standards.
This moral decline is not confined to the sports arena. Recent US corruption scandals are pervasive. These include former senator Bob Menendez’s bribery conviction, a bribery and extortion case involving 70 New York City Housing Authority employees, and numerous other cases implicating public officials and corporate malpractices.
In 2023, Senator Robert Menendez, his wife Nadine, and three New Jersey businessmen were charged with Bribery Offenses. The charges arose out of a years-long scheme through which the businessmen paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Mr and Mrs Menendez in exchange for the senator using his official position and influence, including as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for the personal benefit of these businessmen and to benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar. On Jan 29, Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribery and obstruction of justice offenses.
In February 2024, 70 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the largest public housing authority in the country, were charged with bribery and extortion offenses. The defendants are alleged to have demanded and received cash in exchange for NYCHA contracts or work completion certificates.
Although no society is immune to corrupt individuals acting alone, a corruption syndicate of this scale indicates a systemic problem. It reflects a deeply ingrained culture of corruption (in the United States)
These defendants allegedly demanded over $2 million in corrupt payments from contractors in exchange for awarding over $13 million worth of no-bid contracts. To date, 60 defendants have pleaded guilty, and three defendants were convicted after trial. Although no society is immune to corrupt individuals acting alone, a corruption syndicate of this scale indicates a systemic problem. It reflects a deeply ingrained culture of corruption.
In September 2024, two former chiefs of the New York City Fire Department’s Bureau of Fire Prevention were charged with bribery, corruption and making false statements. They are alleged to have repeatedly abused their positions by accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for providing preferential treatment to specific individuals and companies with matters pending before the Bureau of Fire Prevention. Corruption of this kind directly jeopardizes fire safety and puts human lives at risk.
Corruption also exists in US prisons. In 2021, three employees of the Bureau of Prisons at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan and eight former MCC inmates were charged with participating in an extensive bribery and contraband smuggling scheme. The MCC employees smuggled contraband, including drugs, cell phones, alcohol, and cigarettes, and received bribes in exchange. The inmates then allegedly sold the contraband to other MCC inmates.
Even the nation’s highest court is not immune. Ethical controversies have plagued the US Supreme Court, contributing to a historic decline in its public approval rate. A 2023 report revealed that a justice had accepted luxury gifts, including the use of a private jet and a superyacht, from a real estate investor with cases before the court. The justice refused to recuse himself, a clear breach of conflict-of-interest norms. Under public pressure the court adopted its first code of conduct in November 2023, but the code lacks enforcement mechanisms and is weaker than the standards applied to lower courts.
This pattern of ethical decay is reflected in international surveys. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (where 0 is “highly corrupt” and 100 is “very clean”), the US’ score fell from a high of 76 in 2015 to 65 in 2024 — its lowest score ever. The organization has explicitly cited an “erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power” in the US.
This loss of integrity is eroding American soft power. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that global favorability toward the US has fallen to 35 percent, the lowest since 2017. As Harvard Professor Stephen Walt argued, this rise in corruption fundamentally threatens the nation’s international standing.
In contrast, Hong Kong scored 74 and ranked 17th in the 2024 Corruption Perception Index, significantly outperforming the US, which scored 65 and ranked 28th. Furthermore, it placed 24th globally in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2025, ahead of the US (27th) and many Western nations. The city also maintains a top-10 global standing in “absence of corruption” and “order and security”, with its “absence of corruption” and “regulatory enforcement” rankings actually improving this year to 9th and 15th, respectively. Given this apparent disparity, it is preposterous and disingenuous for the US to keep lecturing Hong Kong on rule of law.
The author is a retired deputy commissioner of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption and an international anti-corruption consultant.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
