A Man Accused Of Scamming NFL Players Is Dead. Here’s What We Know

Mohamed Coulibaly, the 24-year-old accused of orchestrating a multimillion-dollar investment scheme that allegedly targeted current and former NFL players, was found dead in a swimming pool at a New Jersey home on July 31. Authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.

Mohamed Coulibaly found dead: What happened?

Coulibaly was discovered in the pool of a residence in Mullica Hill, an unincorporated community within Harrison Township, after police conducted a welfare check, according to reports from ABC 7 and Barron’s. Family members had contacted authorities after becoming concerned about his well-being, ABC 7 noted.

A spokesperson for the Harrison Township Police Department referred questions about the case to the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office, which has not publicly commented on the investigation.

Mohamed Coulibaly’s alleged NFL investment scheme explained.

The death comes just weeks after Barron’s published an investigative report linking Coulibaly to an alleged investment scheme involving Shopify-powered e-commerce stores. According to the report, investors were told they were purchasing ownership stakes in online businesses that appeared to be generating significant sales.

However, Barron’s alleged that the sales figures were falsified, creating the illusion that the businesses were thriving while investors never received any returns. The scheme reportedly attracted several current and former professional athletes.

According to Barron’s, three former NFL players alone lost more than $1 million combined.

“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. 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 make these athletes think that they had these successful investments in these shops,” said Jacob Adelman, with Barron’s magazine.

New York Giants linebacker Tae Crowder says he was impacted by the alleged scheme.

Former New York Giants linebacker Tae Crowder told ABC 7 that he personally invested $500,000.

“I don’t want anybody else to get involved in anything like this, and whoever has got involved, I just want to come together and make it right,” Crowder told ABC. Crowder said he met Coulibaly through a friend, which made him feel “comfortable” to invest in the idea once they became close. 

“I would log into the store all the time and just see, like, how it would work and what was going on. I feel like the more I told him about that, like, as many times I kept logging in, the number started going up,” Crowder added.

Despite the allegations, Coulibaly was never charged with a crime before his death. He denied any wrongdoing in comments to Barron’s, insisting he was not operating a scam and claiming the publication had misunderstood the situation.

Investigators have not released a cause of death, and it remains unclear how Coulibaly ended up in the pool. Authorities have said the investigation is ongoing.

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