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Mohamed Coulibaly’s unexplained death in a South Jersey swimming pool has renewed scrutiny of an alleged million-dollar investment operation aimed at athletes.
Police discovered Coulibaly, 24, during a July 31 welfare check at a Harrison Township home after relatives raised concerns about his well-being.
The death came weeks after a Barron’s investigation alleged Coulibaly persuaded athletes to buy stakes in Shopify stores that appeared more successful than reality.
Barron’s reported three former NFL players claimed combined losses above $1 million, including Tae Crowder’s entire $500,000 savings.
“The athletes and other investors would buy into these e-commerce shops that seemed to be doing really good business based on the sales logs that they were able to review,” reporter Jacob Adelman said.
“But we were able to determine that those transactions were manually input by somebody with access to the backend of these stores. And the purpose of this was to, to make these athletes think that they had these successful investments in these shops.”
“I would log into the store all the time and just see, like, how it would work and what was going on,” Crowder said. “I feel like the more I told him about that, like, as many times I kept logging in, the number started going up.”
Coulibaly denied running a scam and blamed missing returns on money expected from a proposed acquisition that had not closed.
“I strongly dispute a number of the factual assertions and characterizations contained in the Barron’s article and any follow-up reporting that relies upon them,” Coulibaly said before his death.
Investment materials obtained by reporters named YG among several supposed clients, providing the case’s only direct connection to Hip-Hop.
However, the documents did not establish that YG invested money, suffered losses or even knew his name appeared inside the pitch deck.
That distinction matters because YG and other people merely named in the materials were not accused of participating in Coulibaly’s alleged conduct.
Prosecutors had not charged Coulibaly over the Shopify allegations, although complaints reportedly reached federal and Pennsylvania regulators.
With no case filed, Coulibaly faced no bail decision, release order or trial date involving the alleged athlete operation.
Investigators have not disclosed how Coulibaly died, and the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office continues reviewing the circumstances.
