re: As The Plains Burn II: FBI arrests Auburn's Assist basketball coach

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The FBI claims Jim Gatto -- the Director of Global Marketing for Adidas Basketball -- paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to funnel top prospects to Adidas sponsored colleges ... including Louisville.

It's all in court docs obtained by TMZ Sports ... which says Gatto conspired with a team of people in a massive illegal bribery scheme.

In the documents, the FBI says Gatto tried to pay one player and his family $100,000 to get him to a school of Gatto's choice.

The FBI says it has wiretapped phone calls catching Gatto and his conspirators in the act.

The FBI spells it out ..

"The investigation has revealed multiple instances of bribes paid by athlete advisors, including financial advisors and business managers, as well as high-level apparel company employees, and facilitated by coaches employed by NCAA division 1 universities, to student-athletes playing at or bound for NCAA D-1 universities, and the families of such athletes, in exchange for a commitment by those athletes to matriculate at a specific university and a promise to ultimately sign agreements to be represented by the bribe-payors once the athletes enter the NBA."

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