Uninterrupted - The Real Stories of Basketball Episode 4 - Scam Dunk
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00:00On this season's opening day, the NBA boasts a roster that includes a record-breaking 125
00:09international players representing 40 separate countries.
00:14For that bright future for global players, past the shadow where shady freelance agents
00:21and runners are preying on unsuspecting foreign prospects.
00:29Feels like the wild, wild west to me.
00:31They get to those situations and they basically being taken advantage of.
00:37Everyone knows about human trafficking involving sex workers, but most people never heard of
00:44a basketball player being trafficked.
00:46I was a victim of human trafficking.
00:49They're being exploited, abused, used for financial gain by certain people, and then
00:55basically abandoned.
00:57I felt like I had no help that anything could happen to me right now, and probably nobody
01:02would ever know.
01:11Legendary players, iconic teams, and epic moments in hoop's history that changed the
01:17culture forever.
01:19Journey into the heart and soul of the game, both on and off the court.
01:23This is Uninterrupted, the real stories of basketball.
01:28In recent years, elite prep schools like Oak Hill, Mount Verde, and IMG have produced a
01:34who's who of NBA talent.
01:37Ranging from perennial all-stars like Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, and Ben Simmons.
01:43One prep school alum, Joel Embiid, has inspired a legion of ballers from Africa to follow
01:50in his footsteps, looking to showcase their talents on the biggest stage of youth basketball
01:54in America.
01:55But the thing about it is, not every school in the U.S. is an elite prep school.
02:04Many of these schools do not even have a school building, don't have the qualified administrators,
02:10teachers, or the resources to care for young people.
02:14Anderson County Councilman Tom Allen represents the district where the academy is housed,
02:19and says although people had questions, no one knew the extent of the problems.
02:24He's now calling the whole operation a scam.
02:27For too many young players, these prep schools only prepare kids for disappointment and sorrow,
02:34including a talented teenager from West Africa.
02:43I'm Suleman Dumbia.
02:47I was born in Ivory Coast in a capital city called Abidjan on April 3rd, 1999.
02:55I started playing basketball when I was 14, 15.
03:02What made me play basketball is I was living in this neighborhood and some people were
03:07just moving like a block away from me and one day I just saw them dribbling basketball
03:12and it just looked beautiful.
03:15That made me fall in love with it.
03:18My first day working out with a team, like everything the coaches were showing me I was
03:26just repeating them, like doing it so right, like I've been doing this for a long time.
03:35I started having so much confidence in myself.
03:41I went back home to my mom and said, you have to send me down to America.
03:46Exceptionally athletic and already 6'9 and 15 years old, Sule is the kind of raw international
03:52prospect to make recruiters see dollar signs.
03:56Soon Sule will be approached by scouts from the United States looking to cash in on his talents.
04:02Now, 15 and 16 year old kids, every one of them if you ask them, they have the talent
04:08to play in the NBA?
04:10They're going to say, yeah, I just need my shot.
04:16I'm Luke Cyphers, I'm an investigative reporter and editor who's followed corruption in youth
04:22sports for about three decades now.
04:26And the trafficking part of this came about in about 2015, Terry Thompson and I were working
04:33on a freelance project.
04:36In my career, I've covered all kinds of corruption in sports, from performance enhancing drugs
04:42to sexual abuse.
04:45I would say this was the most surprising investigation I've ever been a part of, because you can't
04:53believe that this could happen in the United States.
04:58What is basketball trafficking?
05:01It's not dissimilar to a lot of other human trafficking, actually.
05:08It is an exploitation of people's labor and often their immigration status to confine
05:15them, mistreat them, and keep them sometimes almost as prisoners for somebody else's profit.
05:24A lot of this has to do with the demographics of basketball, because the NBA has done a
05:32remarkable job of expanding the market for its game across the world, really since the
05:40Dream Team in 1992.
05:42In 1992, the Olympics allowed for professional players who were competing in the NBA to participate
05:55in the Olympics, which is the first time this happens in history.
06:04As competition improves around the world, this delivers a wake-up call to the NBA that
06:09they need to pay much closer attention to international talent.
06:21They know to be able to compete that they need size, and size comes from Africa, Russia,
06:29it comes from overseas.
06:31The NBA was very good in accepting international players into the league.
06:39Akeem Olajuwon and Drazen Petrovic are probably the two early examples of players who became
06:44stars and who really expanded that market.
06:51All I was doing was Akeem Olajuwon's move, spin, move, baseline.
06:57One of my teammates I really didn't know basketball, said, man, started calling me Akeem.
07:03The NBA marketing push overseas works, and the youth participation skyrockets.
07:12The NBA began something called Basketball Without Borders in 2001 in South Africa, and
07:20it has exploded into a huge camp to find talent.
07:25And the superstar, Dikembe Mutombo.
07:30I was able to attend Dikembe Mutombo's camp in South Africa in May, actually, and I asked
07:36him, what do I have to do to play in the NBA?
07:40He said, you have to work hard, you have to have good grades at school, you have to have
07:46good attitude.
07:48In Africa, Basketball Without Borders, there's a real good scouting element that's come out
07:56of this.
07:58Kids internationally see people that look like them and come from where they're from
08:05playing and succeeding in the NBA.
08:10What it has done has created a whole market for people across the world to want to come
08:17to the United States, to take advantage of the promise that they've seen on television.
08:24With that promise, with that kind of American dream, has come a lot of corruption.
08:34Including the Sharks, circling the global prospects, hoping for one of them to feed
08:37them millions.
08:39In countries like Sully's Ivory Coast, runners and street agents ID talent.
08:44Then they present the kids with an irresistible proposal.
08:47Sign with me, and I'll guarantee you a visa to come play high school or prep academy basketball
08:51in the United States.
08:54With my guidance, you'll score a Division I college scholarship and a solid chance at
08:59NBA stardom.
09:00The only thing the runners ask for is a few thousand dollars and a hefty cut of the player's
09:05future earnings.
09:11Every morning I wake up and I'll have dozens of messages from whether it be agents or talent
09:16scouts or actually the kids themselves, often starting, hello sir, will you please help
09:21me find a school in the United States?
09:24My name is Cody Hopkins, I'm a former college basketball coach, currently I'm a national
09:28scout and evaluator for junior college basketball in the United States.
09:34The dream is very much alive in many countries across the world, and sometimes you can find
09:41a young man that is definitely worth the opportunity.
09:46But sometimes we lose the realization of what are we doing it for, are we really doing it
09:52for the kid, or are we doing it for our own self-promotion?
09:56Highlights of Sully's performance at Matumbo's Basketball Without Borders camp put him in
10:00the crosshairs of a prep school recruiter.
10:03He saw it and he saw that it was an Ivorian kid and he immediately wanted to help me.
10:08The recruiter is Ares Hines, who is well known for serving as a talent scout and a middleman
10:13to American prep schools.
10:15And I remember the thing he said to me is, I'm going to get you to the NBA, just follow
10:19my lead.
10:20Sully sees Hines as his first big break.
10:23Hines sees Sully as just another kid to exploit, but one he can control and take a vast percentage
10:28of future earnings, including sponsorships, sneaker deals, and pro contracts.
10:34What he was telling me was that him and his family are going to take care of me, they're
10:39just going to make sure I have the right training, they're going to make sure my education is
10:42taken care of.
10:44Hines' recruitment tactics have worked on many foreign hopefuls.
10:47It's a simple strategy, make the kid believe.
10:51Oh, and Sully does.
10:54I realized that I don't even think I'm good yet and the coaches are calling me right now.
11:00So what if I keep working harder and get even better, what's going to happen?
11:06Maybe the NBA is going to call me.
11:08So that's what really motivated me.
11:11Sully takes Hines' advice and agrees to attend the Evelyn Mack Academy, 5,000 miles away
11:21in Charlotte, North Carolina.
11:24Evelyn Mack was a former police officer who ran that academy.
11:28Airs Hines helped Sully process the paperwork.
11:33Evelyn Mack issues an I-20 form that certifies Sully is eligible to enroll at the school
11:37in the U.S.
11:39The I-20 is incredibly valuable because without it, there's no visa.
11:45The I-20, it's a form that you need filled out and certified legally to be able to come
11:51into the United States as a student.
11:55The visa doesn't work well with the system because in no way was it ever made to be used
12:02for a multi-billion dollar sport industry that we know over time has been rife with
12:07exploitation and different scams.
12:10The agreement was that I was on a full scholarship and everything was going to be taken care of.
12:17If Sully and his family had doubts, they were comforted by looking at the Staley Administration
12:22building on the Evelyn Mack homepage.
12:25I was so excited.
12:27Like, I was on the Ivory Coast, but my spirit was already here.
12:32I was not even living over there anymore.
12:34Over there, I'm thinking, like, wow, like, I got my visa.
12:38Now I get to go be like Kevin Durant, train like him, do everything like him, play like
12:44him.
12:44So it was just all exciting.
12:46Like, I wouldn't even think about missing my parents or anything.
12:49All I was thinking was just getting my flight and come to the U.S., which has always been
12:54my dream.
12:55The day when I was leaving, I started thinking, I started realizing that, whoa, like, I'm
13:00really going.
13:01I don't know when I'm coming back.
13:04I probably might not even see my parents again.
13:07And I didn't really, really let it get to me until I saw my dad crying and my mom cry
13:15too.
13:25Suli's family has saved up for months to pay for their son's plane ticket to the U.S.
13:29But if they knew the truth about the Evelyn Mack Academy, they would never let him board
13:33that plane.
13:39I checked out the website and said, wow, that's a very familiar looking piece of architecture.
13:48Looked a little closer, and it was the dome of the MIT library.
13:54And I thought, I don't think this is in Charlotte, North Carolina.
14:00When I arrived at the airport in North Carolina, I met Eric Saenz and his family.
14:05They picked me up, and then he take me to the school.
14:12When I first got to Evelyn Mack, we went to the house that we were staying at.
14:17There were two bedrooms, and each bedroom had at least eight people in there.
14:23That's when I started panicking and breaking down and stuff.
14:29Because I'm like, well, I have to live with all these people.
14:32I don't know what kind of people they are.
14:34And I have to live here.
14:35I'm going to have to go to high school for four years.
14:38I have to live in this for four years.
14:40And I get scared.
14:41I started crying.
14:43Prep academies have always been a part of American basketball culture.
14:46But back in the day, it was a place where rich white kids readied themselves for college.
14:51They put prep and college ball against kids just like them before heading off to a life of prosperity.
14:57It's now without irony that this prep school system would one day become a mechanism
15:01for black and other underprivileged kids to get exploited.
15:05What happened about 20 years ago,
15:07was more and more of these prep schools started popping up.
15:14And anyone can open a school, completely legally, without any regulation.
15:20That's just the nature of our system right now.
15:26And they found a huge market for this.
15:29And they were able to get a lot of money out of it.
15:31And they were able to get a lot of money out of it.
15:32And they were able to get a lot of money out of it.
15:33And they found a huge market for this, especially among international students.
15:44They were created mainly to run basketball teams.
15:48The basketball team would be the main focus of the supposed school.
15:56Often they were online courses offered to these kids,
15:59no real teachers or any kind of actual education.
16:06They call them bootleg prep academies.
16:09It's where the recruiter Eris Hines dumped Suleiman Dumbia
16:13and Hines into the only recruiter duping unsuspecting kids.
16:17Daniel Hicks lured two dozen students from across the country to his West Virginia prep academy,
16:24only for them to discover that the school was an illusion.
16:28While Suley tries to get settled in the Evelyn Mack Academy in nearby West Virginia,
16:32one of the most infamous cases of bootleg prep is about to make headlines.
16:37Following a tip, police investigate West Virginia Prep,
16:40a school run by former NCAA player Daniel Hicks.
16:45Federal authorities say that he made false statements,
16:48designating himself as a headmaster,
16:51even though he has no experience of running a school of any kind.
16:54The recruited international players were found living in a rundown house with little food,
16:59no clothing, and filthy sanitation.
17:02Oh, and no school.
17:06It doesn't exist.
17:07It's all a sham.
17:11Ultimately, Daniel Hicks is convicted of lying to a federal agent and possession of heroin.
17:16He did time in prison, and when he came out of prison,
17:20came out of prison, and the first thing he said when he was asked,
17:27what are you going to do now?
17:28You were just recently released from prison.
17:31Yeah.
17:32What are your plans for the future?
17:35Open up another school.
17:37Run another prep school.
17:38Really?
17:39Yes.
17:40You know, the prep school situation was blown out of proportion.
17:45It definitely was.
17:48I'm not going to put anybody on blast.
17:50If it was bad planning or poor financing, that's all it was.
17:53It wasn't anything else.
17:55Sometimes, you know, things go amok.
17:58The person might be a good person.
18:01Daniel Hicks blamed someone else for what happened in West Virginia Prep.
18:03He said, you know, I'm not going to put anybody on blast.
18:07Daniel Hicks blamed someone else for what happened in West Virginia Prep.
18:10Possibly the same person that Sulu ended up blaming for his own misfortune.
18:15There was a coach that was there that, you know, was hired.
18:18We had an agreement that he could bring his kids to the school,
18:22and he was going to take care of his own situation, which he did it.
18:27So let me ask you a point of light.
18:28Okay.
18:29This is Aeroscience.
18:30I, like I said, I'm not going to even, I'm not even going to even indulge in the situation.
18:41You just got to look at it.
18:42If it's a squirrel and you look at it and it's a squirrel and it makes sense, then it's a squirrel.
18:53As we looked more into the whole industry, Aeroscience's name kept popping up.
19:00He was sort of like the Forrest Gump of the bootleg prep industry.
19:10Aeroscience has affiliations with almost every academy that we investigated.
19:16West Virginia Prep, Burlington Academy, you know, Faith Baptist.
19:22Scenes like this were commonplace in the gym
19:25where dozens of students lived at Faith Baptist Christian Academy.
19:30I probably should have asked Aeroscience more questions about, like,
19:38like exactly what's going to happen, but I trusted him because he said he was going to
19:41do everything for me, but he never told me that I was going to be living with eight people in one room.
19:48If it isn't just a lack of academics, insufficient food,
19:52overcrowded and filthy living conditions that Hines neglects to tell the kids that he lured to
19:56the U.S., he also forgets to mention that their immigration status would be under complete control
20:01of their prep school, allowing them to basically sell kids to other bootleg academies.
20:06That's both a crime and, in effect, human trafficking.
20:14When I left home, my goal was to come here and do everything that I could to go back home one day
20:22and tell my mom, you don't have to work anymore. Tell my dad, you don't have to work anymore.
20:27For my family not to worry about anything that comes to money.
20:34Suli and other players who actually went to Evelyn Mack Academy did not find a glorious
20:41early 20th century building like MIT. It was a squat one-story building not far from a strip mall,
20:51and Suli immediately realized this wasn't what he had signed up for.
21:00I was at Evelyn Mack for about a month, and that's when things started being bad.
21:08He expresses his unhappiness and suggests to the coaches that he may want to transfer to a
21:12different school. They first respond by taking the one thing away that he came to America to do.
21:18They just wouldn't play me. The coach told me that because I'm not American,
21:24I'm not gonna play in front of an American. The coaches try to fight me. They try everything to
21:31get my passport, and I had to put my passport in my underwear so they can't find it. And
21:38Eric's eyes start threatening me, too, that he's gonna send the police to me. They're gonna send
21:44me back home. Of course, I was scared. It was clear to me that I had to move out of there.
21:53Things were so bad. I didn't even speak about this situation to my parents because I was scared of
21:58their reaction. They would have probably sent me back home because they don't want me living in
22:02any situation like that. My last day was the scariest day because everybody turned against me
22:13because I want to leave and because I'm saying the truth about the school.
22:17Nobody would talk to me. I was sitting alone by myself from the morning till 10 p.m. I'm waiting
22:24forever, man, without no food, nothing. And I was so scared. What if they come do something to me?
22:29I'm trying to get out of here. I don't want to be here. She's in the office. I'm sitting,
22:35waiting for her. And I was just waiting. I wasn't saying nothing. And I left Evelyn Mack that day.
22:45Sully is driven away from Evelyn Mack by another recruiter who makes him the same kind of promises
22:50he got from Harris Hines. But since Evelyn Mack signed Sully's I-20 form that secured his visa,
22:56she has the power to get him deported if she reports his departure.
23:00It's a form of extortion that keeps foreign-born players trapped in a bootleg prep system against
23:05their will and restricts their freedom of movement. Thus restricted, at just 16, Sully
23:12is now a victim of human trafficking. Eventually, Sully will be placed in the San Antonio Prep
23:17Academy where he crosses paths with a former D1 college coach. I was living in San Antonio at the
23:24time and had not heard a ball bounce, had not walked into a gym, and was pretty satisfied with
23:30kind of turning the page and moving into a different chapter. But the story of why he quit coaching
23:34basketball isn't entirely self-written. Cody Hopkins had been an assistant coach at New Mexico
23:42and had ended up involved in a scandal there. School officials say Hopkins used a Team P card
23:49to rack up more than $63,000 in charges that couldn't be accounted for. Essentially, it is
23:55a credit card issued by the university. And in this case, it was issued specifically to Cody
24:00and our men's basketball program. Athletic director Paul Krebs says Hopkins either didn't
24:05provide receipts for purchases, falsified receipts, or used the card for personal charges.
24:11Cody Hopkins is fired from the University of New Mexico
24:14while still maintaining his innocence and vowing to clear his name.
24:18Before giving up on basketball, he gets a call that will change his life and one day Sully's as well.
24:24A great friend of mine said, hey man, let's get out of the house. I'm going to take you to a workout
24:27I'm going to. And he said, we're going to go watch St. Anthony's. St. Anthony's sucked. They were horrible.
24:34Why are we going to watch them work out? He goes, no, they've got a new prep school. And I was like,
24:38what? It was intriguing. So I said, sure, you know, we'll take a look.
24:45And I remember walking to the gym and I saw about six guys over 6'9". And some of them were
24:51six guys over 6'9". And some of them were 15 years old.
24:55And I was just like, where did they come from? How did this happen?
25:01So I kind of sat in the back and I watched everyone work out. And mentally I'm taking
25:05notes and I'm like, wow, like going to some games with these guys. Like this is a heck of a team.
25:11So at that time I saw Sully play and he had high energy. He had a great attitude. He worked hard,
25:18but I was very naive as to what was going on other than the basketball side.
25:24After seeing Sully play in San Antonio, Cody Hopkins' interest in basketball is rekindled.
25:29But little does he know, he'll find himself pulled into the very same corrupt bootleg
25:32prep world that ensnared Sully.
25:40Cody interviews with Mike Rawson, who owns yet another basketball academy in Anderson,
25:44South Carolina called 22 Feet.
25:47Mike Rawson was a UK national who wanted to start a kind of a European-style academy system
25:56in the United States with his wife, Brenda Rawson. He talked big and dreamed big.
26:03European style is shorthand for heavy on basketball and light on everything else.
26:10Like academics, it's an approach that Cody Hopkins supports.
26:15I may have an unpopular opinion with this, but I'll offer it up anyway.
26:20A lot of times the prospect has very little interest in academics. And so they don't
26:25really care that they're not getting properly tutored or trained in the classroom.
26:32In Europe, academics and athletics are completely separate.
26:35And I'm not so sure that they need to be together in the same lane.
26:41Perhaps sharing Cody's belief that the European style is unpopular in the US,
26:45the Rawsons describe a very different approach when promoting the 22 Feet academy to local media.
26:51Have the kids here, house those kids, educate those children,
26:54and then let them go on to the next level.
26:56For us, it's about delivering prepared kids to college.
27:00It's really a pretty dynamic concept.
27:02Great opportunity.
27:03Still, Cody remains interested.
27:05Got on the phone with the director, Mike Rawson, and he explained to me that I had a contract,
27:12a full-time position there, housing was going to be provided, be paid.
27:17And I knew they had some success because I had watched around the country,
27:20some of the guys that had done my research and where they had gone.
27:24Including planning it's other bootleg prep schools, like SULI's former Evelyn Mack Academy.
27:30And that was the level that I was interested in.
27:37So I accepted the job, didn't really have a whole lot on the table at the time.
27:42After a few days, I just was concerned.
27:47I went back to my apartment and my assistant said they arrested Mike and Brenda.
27:52I said, what?
27:54The owners of an Anderson basketball academy are now facing federal charges
27:59after the Department of Homeland Security says they lied when applying to get their visas.
28:07And so I call the school and I say, we've got a problem.
28:18Now that Mike and Brenda Rawson have been arrested,
28:20the full extent of their 22-feet academy horrific living conditions have come to light.
28:25Federal agents discover a rodent infestation and backed up sewage,
28:29all while the Rawsons are still demanding payment from their players
28:33and holding their immigration status over them.
28:39This is the house on Concord Road where 22-foot academy owner Michael Rawson
28:43stayed while he lived in Anderson.
28:46But hidden behind it, according to basketball players,
28:49is a converted garage on the property.
28:51One player had a wound on his leg that got infected from a spider bite.
28:59And his mother brought him back home and he had surgeries and lost all kinds of playing time.
29:06Anderson County Councilman Tom Allen represents the district where the academy is housed
29:11and says although the academy is a large facility,
29:14it's not a safe place to live.
29:16Anderson County Councilman Tom Allen represents the district where the academy is housed
29:20and says although people had questions, no one knew the extent of the problems.
29:25He's now calling the whole operation a scam.
29:28It seems to be the students that are the ones that are hurting right now.
29:32Rawson was deported and returned to Europe.
29:38Much like Suleyman Dumbia, after he left the Evelyn Mack Academy,
29:42the 22-feet academy kids find themselves adrift in a foreign country.
29:46As for Cody Hopkins, the former Division I coach seeking a second chance at a basketball career,
29:51he now finds himself in the middle of another scandal.
29:55We had recruited a young class of freshmen and sophomores.
30:01Their parents entrusted us to make sure that they had a good education and a good experience.
30:08And I knew that wasn't happening.
30:10And it was too late for them to transfer anywhere else and play.
30:16Suleyman Dumbia is also struggling to find his place to settle down and play basketball.
30:22He crisscrosses the country being traded from school to school
30:26by another runner who controls his freedom of movement.
30:31And when I got to my last school, they told me that I had to go renew my I-20.
30:38With his visa expired and the possibility of deportation looming, Suley has to act quickly.
30:44But like most everything he's been told in his pursuit of playing basketball in the U.S.,
30:48Suley is giving misleading advice about what he needs to do.
30:57Somebody came with an idea, we just have to cross Canada and come back.
31:04Suley goes to Canada to try to fix his status because international people,
31:10regardless of their athletic status, cannot adjudicate a visa status in the U.S.
31:15They have to leave the United States.
31:19In other words, to stay in the U.S. legally, Suley must first leave the country.
31:25But it's not as simple as he was told.
31:27He can't just cross the border into Canada and then magically have his visa status fixed.
31:32And when the American border agent sees that Suley's I-20 has expired,
31:36so has his right to re-enter the U.S.
31:38Look at my paperwork, that letter said, wait, you're out of status, do you know that?
31:47I said, what is that?
31:52Immigration officer tells me that I'm going to be kicked out,
31:57that I won't be able to be in the U.S. for the next 10 years.
32:02I had no idea what I was going to do.
32:04I just felt lost.
32:06I felt like everything that I did was just for nothing.
32:12I didn't even want to be alive, I promise you, because of how embarrassed I was.
32:18I didn't know how I was going to handle being back home without no clothes.
32:22With only these things that I have on, with just one backpack with my iPad in it, that's it.
32:32We have to understand that a lot of these young people,
32:36their families make huge sacrifices for them to come to the United States.
32:40Families have invested not only just money and resources,
32:44but hopes and pride that, oh, my son, my daughter's going to the States.
32:48And if they don't make it, there's a huge level of shame that's in there, a huge level of shame.
32:56It was one of the toughest moments of my life,
32:59like thinking about how I'm going to face all the embarrassment that I'm going to go through.
33:03Like, how's my life going to be now?
33:18While Canada is moving to deport Sully back to the Ivory Coast,
33:22U.S. authorities are moving in on the Bootleg Prep School that first brought him to America,
33:27with plans to send the owner and the man that recruited Sully to jail.
33:33The founder of the school did not want to speak on camera, but insisted,
33:36quote, I would never participate in human trafficking.
33:40All of my students are here legally.
33:42Mack admits she does know Eris Hines, the man at the center of the federal investigation,
33:47but maintains this was not the case.
33:49Mack admits she does know Eris Hines, the man at the center of the federal investigation,
33:53but maintains this was the one and only time I worked with him on a student visa.
33:58Federal authorities, over the course of a couple of years,
34:02gathered a lot of evidence of Evelyn Mack brokering I-20s to other interested prep schools,
34:10committing visa fraud.
34:12After word got out about it, players started deserting, the team kind of fell apart.
34:19After school shut down, Evelyn Mack returned my phone call, but was not eager to talk about it.
34:24Is the school open, though?
34:26Yes, it is.
34:27It is. And how come there are no students here today?
34:30No comment right now.
34:35Evelyn was arrested and prosecuted for harboring international players illegally.
34:42What do you have to say to the student athletes, all the families that you lied to?
34:50She didn't lie to anybody.
34:51I didn't lie to anybody.
34:52And she didn't have any papers or nothing to say. Thank you.
34:55So what are you guilty of, then?
34:56All right. Keep on walking.
35:04It's hard for me
35:06to remain composed
35:12and try to recognize the humanity in people like Evelyn Mack,
35:16who've done such a horrible thing to people.
35:21Including runners and recruiters like Aris Hines.
35:24It's an ongoing investigation, so I can't really speak on that right now.
35:30The judge wondered why the authorities weren't pursuing the coaches who were involved in this.
35:37He appeared frustrated that the others whom she worked with are allowed to walk free.
35:42Were there college payoffs? Were there agents involved in any of this?
35:46Who, all the way up the line, might be profiting here and might have been a part of this?
35:51Evelyn Mack may have been kind of a patsy.
35:55What she did was wrong.
35:56But she was part of a much bigger picture.
36:01And so many of the people who facilitate this trafficking, we don't know who they are.
36:09Evelyn Mack was sort of the easy pickings because they had a lot of people who could testify that
36:16she charged quite a bit of money to sell I-20s.
36:19It was pretty blatant.
36:20Unfortunately, we may never know the extent of all this,
36:24at least in regards to Evelyn Mack and her academy.
36:28She died recently.
36:33Aris Hines has so far really been able to escape any sort of major consequences.
36:40He's been investigated by at least two or three people.
36:45He's been investigated by at least two or three jurisdictions.
37:00It really upset me when I think about it.
37:03But, you know, all I can do is try to put my voice out there
37:08so people can be aware of what's going on.
37:11I was a victim of human trafficking.
37:14Anything that's happened to me was not in the best of my interest.
37:18People use me for their own advantages.
37:21That's called human trafficking.
37:28March of 2018, I got a phone call from Navarro College to get back into college coaching.
37:35I took the job and immediately started thinking about those kids from St. Anthony's,
37:42including Suli.
37:44Cody knows Suli can help his team win some ballgames.
37:47But first, he has to find him.
37:49And he's not where Cody might expect.
37:51Thanks God, I got the opportunity from Thailand.
37:55So many good things happened when I went to Thailand.
38:00After being deported back to the Ivory Coast,
38:02yet another basketball recruiter sees the promise in Suli's game
38:06and arranges for him to travel to Thailand to play for a pro team.
38:09Suli has given up on his American dream to play ball in the U.S.
38:13and is beyond skeptical when Cody finally tracks him down.
38:16Cody felt good about my situation and thought he could help me.
38:20He spoke to me about his plans.
38:22It made me a lot of promises at that time.
38:25I didn't want anything to do with him.
38:27I would never answer his call anymore.
38:31I don't want to lead you down the wrong path here.
38:33I recruited Sula Mance because he's a good basketball player.
38:37I'm not a missionary and neither are a lot of the college coaches
38:40that are trying to build their rosters.
38:42They're looking for talented athletes.
38:45Cody wanted me so bad that regardless of what I did,
38:48how much I ignored him, wouldn't leave me alone.
38:52He kept reaching out to me, telling me he wants to help me so bad.
38:56I found out students could reapply for entry into the United States
39:00if they were deported when they were under the age of 18.
39:03Suli fit that category.
39:04The other one was if they were a victim of human trafficking.
39:08Well, Evelyn Mack, convicted of human trafficking.
39:12So I said, here's what you need to do.
39:14You need to tell them that you're applying for re-entry
39:17because you were a victim of human trafficking.
39:20Just try. What do you have to lose?
39:21Like, if you want to come over here and you want to come back to the States,
39:25then let's try it.
39:26I said, you know what?
39:27Let me use this opportunity to prove to people that I really can come here.
39:32So they leave me alone about the United States issue.
39:35Suli had no confidence.
39:37He was like, okay, I'm going to do this,
39:40but I'm telling you it's not going to work.
39:46When I was getting ready to go to the embassy,
39:48if he saw the clothes that I was wearing,
39:50he would probably tell me to go change.
39:52I didn't even care.
39:54He had to get up at 6 a.m. and catch a bus
39:57that was going to take about two hours for him to get to the visa office.
40:00And then he would have to wait in the line
40:02and it would be a 10-minute meeting.
40:04And so I can't imagine the nerves he was having.
40:09I knew that I was getting rejected.
40:17With his life derailed by the Evelyn Mack scandal,
40:20Suli Mae Dumbia finds himself at the U.S. embassy in Thailand,
40:24with one last chance to come back to America.
40:27When I get to the embassy,
40:28I see so many people getting rejected left and right.
40:32I'm like, whoa, mine's going to be so quick, man.
40:37And he checked my passport and tell me,
40:40hey, man, you got some pretty bad stuff about you here, man.
40:43I said, well, I was a victim of human trafficking
40:47and I ended up getting deported.
40:49And he didn't talk to me for about five minutes,
40:51just spending his time making calls and typing.
40:54They got me.
40:54The guy turns around and asks the guy next to him,
40:57do you think I should give him another opportunity?
41:00And the guy said, yes, why not?
41:02Everybody just deserves a second chance.
41:06I was in Oklahoma at the time.
41:07I had stopped off at a truck stop
41:10and I got a call from him and he said,
41:12Cody, I did it, I did it.
41:16They said yes.
41:17And I'll never forget it.
41:19I couldn't believe it.
41:20I literally had a breakdown.
41:22He was excited.
41:23I was excited.
41:25Couldn't really believe it worked.
41:27Pretty much the only thing left is a plane ticket
41:30and he walked off the plane with a fanny pack.
41:35And the biggest smile you've ever seen.
41:38And he was back.
41:39He was ready to go.
41:42In baseball, you say you got to hit singles, you know,
41:44you don't try to hit a home run every time.
41:46This was the home run.
41:48It took somebody having to expose the atrocities
41:52and the lies that would happen to Evan and Mac Academy
41:55for him to even have an opportunity
41:56to come back to the United States.
41:58But in so many cases that happened across the country,
42:02we don't even know who these young people are.
42:08It's a big deal.
42:09It's a big deal.
42:10It's a big deal.
42:11It's a big deal.
42:12It's a big deal.
42:13It's a big deal.
42:14It's a big deal.
42:15It's a big deal.
42:15It's a big deal.
42:17Because they haven't reached the news
42:19and nobody's been able to rectify the situation
42:22or tell their story.
42:25I think it will take a literal act of Congress
42:29to stop basketball trafficking.
42:33I think we need an overhaul of the student visa process
42:36and we need to take into account how it's used for sport
42:39and the exploitation of young people.
42:42Now, Sule ended up back in the United States
42:45with a second chance, but that's so rare.
42:49I can't think of another case like that.
42:53At Navarro College, under Cody's coaching,
42:56Sule becomes a top-ranked junior college center in the country.
43:00This earning him an opportunity to play elite Division I ball
43:03at Texas Christian University.
43:05Sule is going to be successful in whatever endeavor he chooses.
43:10He has a degree from TCU.
43:11He's going to get his MBA from Sam Houston State.
43:15Considering five, six years ago, he was on a plane back to Africa
43:19and being told he'd never come back, I'd call that a win.
43:23Now I have a daughter.
43:25I have to provide for my daughter.
43:27She has to have a beautiful life like my mom did for me.
43:30So when I think about her, when I'm sleeping in the morning,
43:35it's so easy to get up, man, and go,
43:38get things done.
43:41I know that I want to be a professional basketball player.
43:43I don't know where it's going to be.
43:44I don't know when it's going to be.
43:46But one thing I know that I have to do,
43:48and that's in my control, is control my attitude,
43:52respect people, be humble, and keep working.
43:56I never thought about giving up on basketball.
43:58I was focused on my dream no matter what.
44:08you