Mark Walter's Lakers takeover now comes with a legal story attached to it.
Bloomberg reported that federal agents seized Walter's mobile phone and computer last September during a wider investigation into the financial dealings of businesses connected to the billionaire. Walter is the Los Angeles Dodgers owner and the head of TWG Global, the group tied to the Lakers' majority-control deal.
According to the report from Zachary R. Mider, Ava Benny-Morrison and Myles Miller, the FBI carried out a court-authorized search aboard a private plane at Chicago's Midway International Airport on Sept. 18. The FBI's Chicago field office confirmed that it executed a search for a mobile phone and laptop on an aircraft that day, while declining further comment.
The report did not say where the devices are now or what information investigators were seeking. That part matters. Bloomberg also noted that prosecutor probes can end without charges, so the search should not be treated as proof of wrongdoing.
The broader inquiry has reportedly looked at potential financial improprieties involving two of Walter's insurance companies and Guggenheim Partners, the financial firm he leads. One early focus, according to people familiar with the matter, was a TWG deal with Mubadala Capital, an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund arm. TWG announced in April 2025 that Mubadala Capital would anchor a $10 billion syndicated investment, and prosecutors were looking into whether Mubadala had been misled about valuations. Bloomberg said it remains unclear whether that line of inquiry is still active.
The timing is why this will follow Walter into the NBA conversation. The search happened last year, but the reporting landed after Walter became the central name in the Lakers' ownership future. It is not a roster story, yet ownership stability, league approval optics and long-term spending confidence all sit close to the basketball product in Los Angeles.
For the Lakers, the basketball piece is indirect but impossible to ignore. Walter is moving from minority stakeholder to the face of a franchise-changing ownership transaction, with the Buss family sale valuing the team at $10 billion. Any federal scrutiny around his business network will be watched closely while that transition continues.
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