Mohamed Coulibaly, a 24-year-old Philadelphia entrepreneur, allegedly took more than $1M from former NFL players by selling them stakes in Shopify stores whose dashboards showed manually faked sales, according to a Barron’s investigation. Investors, mostly ex-players, put in at least $50,000 apiece for prebuilt online stores, but Barron’s found many orders were entered by hand, including one store with 360-plus orders and just 90 visitors. Eagles stars Nakobe Dean and Jalen Carter, rapper YG, and U.S. soccer player Mark McKenzie appeared as clients in his pitch decks, though Barron’s said it was unclear whether they knew and none are accused of wrongdoing. Those faked sales allegedly helped Coulibaly pitch a $215M sale of his firm Motion Ventures to a Dubai buyer, and he denies any fraud, calling the Barron’s account inaccurate.
