U.S. Drops Inquiry of Arum

After a 20-month FBI sting operation, a raid of the Top Rank Boxing Organization offices in Las Vegas and a subsequent investigation that lasted nearly 2 1/2 years, federal law enforcement officials have dropped the probe of promoter Bob Arum’s operation without handing down any indictments.

“I’m gratified, ecstatic,” Arum said. “I understand that the government has to investigate when there are allegations, but I knew from the get-go that we had done nothing wrong. A great weight is off my back.”

After an undercover agent, New York City detective Frank Manzione who went by the name Big Frankie, spent 20 months allegedly wiretapping Las Vegas boxing figures, the Top Rank offices were raided in January 2004, the agents leaving with the hard drives from computers, medical records, fight tapes, boxers’ contracts and financial documents. The hard drives were returned several days later, but the rest of the material remained in FBI hands.

Rumors of fixed fights, tax fraud, phony medical reports and other illegal practices were circulated.

The investigation was initiated after a 2002 fight at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim involving light-heavyweight Joey Torres, a 41-year-old convicted murderer. Freed from prison, Torres was attempting to make a boxing comeback on a Top Rank card.

When he knocked out opponent Perry Williams 39 seconds into the second round after earlier going down himself, there was a suspicion the fight was fixed. Representatives of the California State Athletic Commission failed to prove that contention.

Nevertheless, Torres, cooperating with authorities, introduced Manzione into the boxing community as a businessman who wanted to get involved in the sport.

The Top Rank investigation was eventually taken over by the Justice Department’s organized crime and racketeering section in Washington. When it was ultimately decided not to proceed with the prosecution, federal officials in Las Vegas closed the case.

Neither the FBI nor the U.S. attorney’s office in Las Vegas would comment, but a source close to the investigation said that the case had languished for so long in the nation’s capital, “it would have been too hard to pick up the pieces.”

One subject of the probe said he was told by FBI agents that they had enough to charge him but were instead determined to find wrongdoing by Arum.

According to this source, all the FBI had was evidence of mismatches, a common practice in boxing to build up the records of promising fighters, but certainly not illegal.

Arum said he was alerted Thursday that the FBI would again be coming by his office the following morning.

A white vehicle pulled up Friday morning containing agents who brought in the material confiscated 29 months earlier.

One agent said, according to an employee who was in the building: “It’s over.”

Arum said the long period of investigation, with numerous boxing figures rumored to be testifying before a grand jury, made it difficult for him to continue to do business.

“Competitors will always use something like that against you,” Arum said.

“They would tell people, ‘You don’t want to do business with them because they are going to be indicted.’ ”

The 74-year-old Arum, who has been in the boxing business for 40 years, said he resorted to sleeping pills to ease his tension during the long months.

“All’s well that ends well,” Arum said. “I’m not bitter, not angry. In any other country, if the government spent this much time and this much effort, they would find something or create something.”