The 23-year-old man’s life was nothing short of a fairy tale, a rapid rise from a boyhood so poor that he and his brother shared a winter jacket when they emigrated from Mali to Philadelphia.
By the time Mohamed Coulibaly left college a few years ago, he was wearing designer clothes, flying private and mingling with professional athletes he had persuaded to invest in an online shopping venture that he assured them was all profit, zero risk.
This summer, Mr. Coulibaly was found dead in a pool in New Jersey. The money had stopped flowing. In his final months, he had been fending off furious investors and journalists digging into his business. Mr. Coulibaly was never charged with any crime, nor did it appear he was being investigated by law enforcement.
There was so little money left when he died, it seemed, that his brother launched an online fund-raiser to help ship his body home to West Africa.
As his family buried him in Bamako, Mali, last week, investors were struggling to recover their money, and seeking answers. Had Mr. Coulibaly been a young entrepreneur in over his head? Or had he ran a Ponzi scheme that unraveled?
Shortly before his death, Mr. Coulibaly told Barron’s in an interview that he was not running a scam, and that payments were delayed because a company had not yet delivered a promised investment. “We’re not really sure if they’re going through some financial issues currently,” he said at the time, referring to the investment company.
But at his weeklong funeral in Bamako, the country’s capital, none of that seemed to matter. Seated outside the family home on a plastic chair as mourners paid their respects, his uncle, Vieux Coulibaly, looked through pictures of his nephew as a boy. He and other family members refused to answer questions.
“And that changes what?” his uncle said, his eyes red, when asked about his nephew’s businesses. “A lot of athletes got a lot out of him,” he added. “It doesn’t bring him back to me.”
A Sneaker Millionaire
Mr. Coulibaly’s ascendant life story has been detailed in a series of articles and podcasts over the years. While some of his supposed businesses existed, it’s impossible to know how successful they were. The New York Times also spoke to friends, family and former business partners about Mr. Coulibaly.
His father was a brick maker in Bamako, who along with his mother struggled to find work after the family emigrated to America when Mohamed was about 6 years old, he told the podcast “ProSoccerTalk” in 2022.
His parents divorced shortly after and his brother, sister and mother spent the next five years essentially homeless, he said. Sometimes they slept huddled on the floor in front of a space heater, as they bounced between the homes of extended family in Virginia and Pennsylvania before his mother found a job as a hotel housekeeper in Philadelphia.
After that, success came quickly, according to articles in places like GQ Africa and Forbes. In one, Mr. Coulibaly claimed that by 19 he had made $1.2 million reselling high-end sneakers while still attending Roxborough High School in Philadelphia. In another he had made $4 million by age 21.
But in online posts and interviews, several customers said that Mr. Coulibaly’s company, HeatKickCity, never delivered their shoes to them.
He said he played professional soccer with the New York Red Bulls (now known as Red Bull New York) and had played soccer at Temple University, in Philadelphia, where he majored in business management. While he did attend Temple, he was not on the team, according to players. And his professional career appears limited to participating in the preseason camp of the New York Red Bulls II, a reserve team.
Jalen Campbell, 25, who played on Temple’s soccer team, remembered Mr. Coulibaly as a fan who did everything with the college team except play, though he often told classmates he was on the team.
“No one really called him out for it,” he said. Mr. Campbell said he paid Mr. Coulibaly $700 for a pair of Nike x Off-White sneakers during his senior year that he never received. Mr. Coulibaly eventually paid him back. “Obviously there was a lot of bad, but he was kind and genuine to us.”
Still, his story as an entrepreneur gained traction. At 22, Mr. Coulibaly, who went by Moh, founded a fashion brand, Motion Apparelz, posing with rappers and possibly dating a reality star. In nearly every article Mr. Coulibaly is pictured with a private jet. He told one interviewer that he had founded Motion Aviation, a charter jet company that operated 14 planes.
While companies with that name exist in multiple states, they do not appear to be active. Mr. Coulibaly is not listed as a proprietor of any.
Inside the N.F.L.
A former running back for the New York Giants, Matt Breida is hazy about when he first met Mr. Coulibaly, but remembers seeing him at parties and events hosted by other players. Mr. Coulibaly never explained how he had stepped into this world, but he said he started partying with professional athletes when he was just 16.
That claim does not appear to be all bluster: TikTok videos show him jetting to New Orleans and celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles’ 2025 Super Bowl win with the team, at times dancing with the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Another former player, Tae Crowder of the Giants, backed Mr. Coulibaly’s e-commerce business called Motion Venture, also known as Vent Motion. In news reports, Mr. Crowder has said that he lost more than $500,000, his life savings.
Other investors appeared to have had more success. Steve Keim, the former general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was so impressed with his returns that he joined Mr. Coulibaly as Vent Motion’s chief operating officer in 2025.
The presence of Mr. Keim on Zoom calls and pitches, Mr. Breida and other investors said in interviews, seemed to legitimize Mr. Coulibaly. Mr. Breida handed him over $250,000 last year, with the promise that in six months he’d get it all back — plus 50 percent.
He did.
But, starting last fall, Vent Motion began missing deadlines. For months, investors said, Mr. Coulibaly offered endless and increasingly implausible excuses. Concerned, Mr. Breida and others hired Barry Minkow, a professed fraud investigator who has been convicted of running frauds himself.
About six months ago, Mr. Minkow submitted complaints to the F.B.I. and the Securities and Exchange Commission, he said. Spokesmen for the two agencies declined to comment.
Mr. Keim said he had been interviewed by federal investigators and had turned over documents, according to an August interview on the podcast “Inside Football.” In a statement sent to The Times, Mr. Keim said that he had also lost money.
“I was a victim of this alleged fraud,” Mr. Keim wrote. “Not its perpetrator.”
If Mr. Coulibaly felt pressure as the complaints piled on, he did not appear to show it. That winter he flew between parties in Los Angeles and Italy, appearing head to toe in Louis Vuitton at Milan Fashion Week, even as investors say he owed them millions.
A Lamborghini, Two Rolexes and Cleats
The last day of Mr. Coulibaly’s life was spent in a frantic confrontation with a client, according to Mr. Minkow. The client, who had invested more than $1 million in Mr. Coulibaly’s business, demanded his money back, Mr. Minkow said.
On the morning of July 31, Mr. Coulibaly asked the investor for an additional $75,000 as he sought to stabilize the business.
As collateral, Mr. Coulibaly offered two Rolex watches and a pair of soccer cleats signed by Lionel Messi, all delivered in a Lamborghini truck, which was also included. Instead, a plain Uber pulled up, and the driver handed the client a Lamborghini key, the shoes and watches with serial numbers that did not match.
The client texted Mr. Coulibaly that the deal was off.
“You can’t be serious right now,” Mr. Coulibaly wrote.
“Dead,” the investor replied.
Mr. Coulibaly replied: “I will be.”
That evening, responding to a 911 call for a wellness check from a family member, officers from the Harrison Township Police Department found Mr. Coulibaly in a pool where he had been living in Mullica Hill, N.J. The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment. But according to people familiar with the case, Mr. Coulibaly died by suicide. They asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
As his family mourns Mr. Coulibaly, investors back in the United States are trying to understand what happened and get their money back. Mr. Breida believes the more than $250,000 he gave Mr. Coulibaly will never be recovered. But that has grown less important in the wake of his death, Mr. Breida said, and he wishes he could have helped the charismatic young man see the bigger picture.
“Yeah, you messed up, you made a mistake, but you’re 23 years old,” Mr. Breida said he wanted to tell Mr. Coulibaly. “I feel like you were so young, you could have grown from it.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
The post He Partied With Athletes and Was Called a Fraud. Then He Was Found Dead. appeared first on New York Times.
