On a hot afternoon in late July, a jubilant Gilbert Arenas — the retired NBA point guard who grew up hard in the Valley with a single dad before he catapulted himself to an All-Star career with the Washington Wizards — dances his way out of a federal lockup. The athlete is all smiles, fi st pumping and wrist twisting as he makes his way down dozens of concrete steps in flip-flops, clad in the same black tee and red basketball shorts he was wearing when he was arrested in a predawn raid by federal investigators hours earlier. His celebratory frolic is captured by his new wife, French American influencer and YouTube star Melli Monaco, who stands on the sidewalk recording a cellphone video. She has just posted a $50,000 bond so that her husband of roughly seven months can come home. As Arenas skips into the frame, Monaco can be heard giggling, “Free!”
This isn’t her new husband’s first arrest. Sixteen years earlier, he infamously dunked his NBA career after he and Wizards teammate Javaris Crittenton pulled guns on each other in the locker room over a dispute after a card game on the team plane, leading to a felony charge and a league suspension. That time, Arenas skated with a 30-day commitment to a halfway house, two years’ probation and a $5,000 fine. This time, he is facing a federal prison sentence. Nonetheless, Arenas doesn’t seem worried. As he makes his way toward his wife, he’s all grins as he sing-songs into the camera: “They can’t hold me baby. They can’t hold me.”
It is a stunning act of braggadocio from a man now charged alongside a coterie of colorful suspected underworld figures with ties to various organized crime outfits — a crew federal prosecutors say runs high-stakes poker games at tony homes across Los Angeles with a carefully curated guest list of wealthy Angelenos: NBA players, Hollywood industry insiders and trust funders. Private card games are not necessarily illegal, unless of course the players, the prostitutes in attendance or anyone else affiliated with the enjoyment of a long, smoky night playing Pot Limit Omaha is paying a rake — a tax — to the house, in this case to the Israeli mob.
That underworld outfit, according to federal prosecutors, has a history of offering high-interest loans to the night’s big losers– and of eliminating those running competing high-stakes poker games.
Those are among the charges outlined in a 24-page federal indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in July, charges that come three years after an armed raid interrupted one such game at Arenas’ 5,300-square-foot mega mansion in Encino, one with impossibly picturesque views of the City of Angels from every window of the Tuscan-inspired villa.
Feds refer to Arenas’ palatial estate on Gable Drive as the “Gable House.” Its owner earned a flashier nickname from basketball fans: “Agent Zero,” inspired both by the way he eluded defenders on the court like a clandestine operative and because of his jersey number, 0. Federal investigators say the Gable House was a den of debaucherous poker games run by men who seem to be on the periphery of at least two high-profile crimes in Los Angeles: the unsolved 2021 disappearance of a Culver City mom who vanished from a poker party at a luxury high-rise in DTLA (her beloved Labradoodle, Seven, was found wandering alone on an upper floor) and the 2023 assassination of an Israeli national who was playing poker in the Hollywood Hills.
Outside of the mansion owned by Gilbert Arernas, dubbed the “Gable House.” Credit: Los Angeles magazine
On game nights at the Gable House —and at other luxury locales across the city— parking valets in tailored suits were at the ready. At Arenas’ home they stood near the iron gates to welcome the scores of luxury vehicles pulling into the 10-car interminable driveway. Beefy, armed security guards lurked inside and out, giving cash-flush gamblers a sense of safety in a neighborhood that had recently been besieged by home invasions and targeted by crews of late-night burglars. Inside, guests mingled with attractive women whom prosecutors say provided paid “companionship” to the players, massaging shoulders, serving drinks and performing other paid services. Private chefs cooked up healthy fare. When it was time to play, high rollers assembled around the card table that made Arenas not just a landlord for the illicit games, as he claimed on social media, but instead, say the feds, a direct participant.
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The personalized gaming table feds say Arenas contributed to the poker ring.Credit: Justice Department
The federal indictment sets the scene: The table is rimmed in gold and covered in black felt. In the center is a silhouetted figure of a basketball player with raised clenched hands and a “0” jersey. The words “ARENAS POKER CLUB” are emblazoned across the top. The table is part of a $14,000 buy-in prosecutors allege Arenas made to be part of the poker ring in return for a cut of the rake. All of it imbues an air of sex, scandal and, most important, danger. Some say gamblers are by nature addictive personalities, hooked on fast action and adrenaline. The crowd running the games at the Gable House in Encino, federal prosecutors say, didn’t skimp on the danger.
The entire operation, according to court records, involved a reputed Israeli crime lord, a Russian professional poker player, a convicted narco trafficker and other hangers-on. The suspects listed in an indictment unsealed by California’s Central District court reads like an above-the-line call sheet for an L.A.-based Ocean’s Eleven film.
Former Washington Wizards player Gilbert Arenas takes part in a ceremony during the halftime of an NBA basketball game between the Wizards and the Miami Heat, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)Credit: AP Photo/ Nick Wass
The Players
The Baller
Gilbert “Agent Zero” Arenas, 43, former Washington Wizards star, who rented his Encino mansion for poker games, prosecutors say.
The Boss
Yevgeni “Giora” Gershman, 49, who prosecutors describe as a “high- ranking member of an Israeli transnational crime organization” — and who charged women providing “companionship” at the event a 25%-35% “tax” on their earnings.
The Muscle
Allan “Elica” Austria, 52, a convicted narco trafficker who served time for running drugs from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
The Pro
Evgenni “Eugene” Tourevski, 48, a recognizable name on the professional poker circuit who kept the win/loss sheet, prosecutors allege.
The Stager
Arthur Kats, 51, who prosecutors say staged the mansion and found co-conspirators to host the games as well as taking the rent from the co-conspirators on Arenas’ behalf.
The Manager
Yarin “YC” Cohen, 27, the baby in the bunch, who feds say collected the “rake” from the games for Gershman.
The Runner
Ievgen Krachun, 43, accused of tracking players’ wins and losses, distributing poker chips to players and paying employees.
The Moll
Valentina Cojocari, 35, who prosecutors say entered a “sham marriage” with Gershman so he could get U.S. citizenship.
Professional poker player Evgeni TourevskiCredit: PGT.com
In the sherbert-colored hue of a Southern California sunrise on a hot summer morning in late July, agents assigned to the Department of Homeland Security set out on a series of coordinated predawn raids. Arenas is busted in West Hills. Yevgeni Gershman, whom prosecutors describe as a “high-ranking member of an Israeli transnational crime organization,” is taken into custody in Woodland Hills (agents say Valentina Cojocari, who claims to be his wife, is not with him). Ievgen Krachun, accused of being a runner for the game, is cuffed in Tarzana, as is Evgenni Tourevski, who allegedly kept the won/loss records. Arthur Kats, accused of helping to stage the game, was later captured in West Hollywood.
Most of them are quickly released on bond — except for Gershman, who is detained pending trial. Allan Austria, accused of being the game’s enforcer, is held over the weekend because he’s a convicted felon found with guns. According to court records, the cache of weapons discovered at the West Hills home he shares with his “longtime life partner” Gina Porras, his father and their 13-year-old daughter, includes a loaded Winchester under his bed and another weapon within reach. But he, too, is eventually released on bond. His lawyer calls the whole case “a celebrity prosecution.”
The arrests should have come as no surprise to any of the suspects now under indictment. The Gable House had been raided three years earlier on July 20, 2022. A player had lost more than a million dollars in a single night and was terrified the Israeli mob was going to kill him. He began cooperating, leading the feds to start watching members of the crew. On that night, according to investigators, the suspects are all present — except Arenas — at a poker party in Encino. With a DEA helicopter overhead and heavily armed agents swarming inside, gamblers try to dash to freedom. One falls into the pool. No one escapes, not the players, not Gershman or his men. Drugs and money are seized, but no one would be arrested until 2025.
Some of the money seized in the raid at the Gable House, cash that Arenas later tried to claim from U.S. Customs Enforcement, was marked as part of an ongoing federal investigation into the poker ring, a law enforcement source tells Los Angeles.
The cash had been linked to a poker game at the DTLA Hope + Flower high- rise, which is where the missing woman, Heidi Planck, 39, was last seen before her disappearance. Forensic evidence collected there sent cops to a Castaic landfill in a futile search for her remains. Months after the Gable House raid, as federal officials cut deals with informants and cooperators, Planck, who left behind her young son, Bond, was declared dead.
In June 2023, Emil Lahaziel, a player at a poker game in the Hollywood Hills that several sources confirm was run by at least one of the same suspects named in the indictment against Arenas, was shot dead outside the game.
Arenas was not implicated in either the Planck or Lahaziel case, and none of his co-defendants have been named either. Still, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Scarsi has issued a protective order to mitigate “potential safety risks” to cooperating informants and witnesses in the Gable House case, an order by which all defense attorneys and federal prosecutors are now bound.
The gun found under the bed of Allan Austria, a convicted felon.
of Allan Austria, a convicted felon.Credit: Justice Department
In early September, with almost all the suspects free on bail, Arenas posts another video to his @NoChillGilZero X account with the captions: “Man, jail had me SHOOK … no WiFi, no hoop court, no snacks. I asked for room service and the CO handed me a bologna sandwich. Whole time I felt like I got traded from the NBA to the YMCA overnight.” In the accompanying video, Arenas adds that he has “never really been like in jail, jail” and asks, “why is everything like, metal” in prison, saying there should be “some cushions.”
“Who did they think they arrested?” Arenas asks in the video, then references a former scandal-free Wizards teammate. “They thought I was just regular, regular. Nooooo. No, I’m not Kwame Brown.”