SAN DIEGO | A fired card dealer accused of leading a crew that swindled casinos --including Resorts East Chicago -- has pleaded guilty to multiple charges.

Phuong Quoc Truong, 42, ran the San Diego-based operation that hit 16 casinos nationwide. The scheme -- which bilked nearly $7 million from casinos -- involved bribes to supervisors and card dealers and used blocks of unshuffled cards.

Truong, who pleaded guilty Wednesday to racketeering conspiracy and theft charges, faces up to 20 years in prison. He is the seventh of 19 members of the ring to plead guilty in what federal prosecutors called one of largest cheating schemes ever broken up.

A federal indictment handed down last May charged 19 members of the Tran Organization with conspiring to bribe, steal, transport stolen property, launder money, tamper with witnesses and defraud 14 casinos.

Members of the ring crisscrossed the continent beginning in 2002, sometimes swooping down only after gauging a casino's weaknesses, according to the indictment.

A Resorts East Chicago card dealer initially rebuffed the ring's attempt to lure him into the scheme but later succumbed, the indictment said.

The Resorts dealer, named only by the initials C.S., agreed to perform a false shuffle at a mini-baccarat table.

By failing to properly reshuffle cards already dealt, the dealer ensures the cards are in same order as in the previous game, enabling the cheaters to predict the outcome of the next game.

The scheme netted the ring $868,000 in less than two hours at Resorts on Oct. 22, 2005, but did not pass unnoticed.

"I knew within a matter of an hour," former Resorts East Chicago General Manager Joseph DeRosa The Times in May. Tim Wright, current senior vice president and general manager, could not be reached Thursday.