Earlier this year, e-commerce site Dailyprodtrend recorded a $5,000 order from a customer in Luxembourg for 100 desktop humidifiers and 120 USB-powered cup warmers.
It was the latest in a long list of purported sales at the seemingly thriving Shopify-powered website that broke some basic rules of internet marketing. Dailyprodtrend doesn't appear in Google search results, and its web address is a random string of numbers and letters.
In fact, it isn't meant to be seen by shoppers at all. A Barron's investigation found that Dailyprodtrend appears to be built on a ruse that uses Shopify, a leading platform for creating and running web shops, to mislead website proprietors into thinking they own successful online businesses.
An internal dashboard for Dailyprodtrend shows a long list of orders. Barron's analysis suggests they are fake. The buyer for the humidifiers and cup warmers doesn't actually exist.
"Who needs 100 humidifiers and 120 cup warmers?" says the person who lives at the address where the items were supposedly sent.
The arrangement that clients now call a scam was organized by a 24-year-old burgeoning entrepreneur named Mohamed Coulibaly. It has largely victimized professional athletes, who are offered ownership of the bogus websites as a place to invest cash from their lucrative careers. The athletes, in this case, seem to have ignored red flags, urged on by an internet culture of get-rich-quick schemes.
Coulibaly's social-media feeds project an aura of wealth, success, and influence with a powerful network of athletes, entertainers, and executives. In his Instagram feed, he boards private jets, rides on yachts, and relaxes in a limited-edition two-tone Maybach.
It's been a draw for a vulnerable group. Athletes earn the bulk of their lifetime income when they're young and are lacking in financial experience, says Jon Hayes, managing director of MAI Capital Management in Cincinnati.
"You haven't yet had your hand next to the stove to know that it's hot," says Hayes, who works with athletes as clients. "But yet you have millions of dollars."
An Ernst & Young report in March found that athletes had been defrauded out of nearly $1 billion over the two decades through 2024.
Players are being victimized at ever increasing rates as more money flows into professional sports through surging fees for media rights, merchandising campaigns, and partnerships, the study found.
Earlier this year, a former Morgan Stanley investment advisor was convicted of defrauding NBA players out of more than $5 million by marketing them life insurance policies at inflated markups.
One former athlete who lost money with Coulibaly told Barron's that the apparent scam had caused distress among players who had been counting on him to grow their nest eggs.
"Everybody doesn't know if they're going to get their money back," says the athlete, who owned a now-defunct Shopify site called LuxeLane through Coulibaly. "People are scared."
Three former NFL players interviewed by Barron's -- including the Dailyprodtrend and LuxeLane owners -- collectively say they lost more than $1 million across separate investments with Coulibaly.
Barron's reviewed the Shopify interface for Dailyprodtrend and confirmed that an online order appeared on the site's dashboard without triggering a shipment. The effort appears to use a Shopify tool that allows merchants to create manual entries in the software's ledger for occasional offline transactions. Seemingly fake entries include sales of motorized water guns, hand-held electric fans, and smartphone cases.
Shopify declined to comment for this article.
Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity expert who reviewed the dashboard at Barron's request, says the site has all the signs of a scam.
"Nothing about this passes the smell test," says Edwards, an online-threat investigator at digital security firm Infoblox. "It's a really clever way to use Shopify's good reputation to launder a fraud."
It isn't clear whether or how many other investors have been duped by similar fake sites, but the names of about two dozen current and former pro athletes and other public figures are named as clients on a pitch deck viewed by Barron's that Coulibaly has circulated to potential investors.
The athlete owner of LuxeLane says Coulibaly had what appeared to be $25 million in a business account that Coulibaly showed him on a cellphone screen.
In a recent interview with Barron's, Coulibaly described his e-commerce operation, Motion Ventures, as one part of his business. He wore sweatpants with a logo from Motion Apparelz, a fashion label he sells online.
Professional athletes "invite me around because they like the energy that I bring," Coulibaly says. "The business portfolio that I have makes it a lot easier for these guys to want to be around me as well."
The three athletes who spoke to Barron's say they were reassured by their peers' connections to Coulibaly, as well as the involvement of Steve Keim, a former general manager of the Arizona Cardinals football team, who is operations chief of Coulibaly's e-commerce venture.
"Because why would someone of Steve's stature get involved with something that wouldn't be real?" the Dailyprodtrend owner told Barron's.
When contacted by Barron's in May, Keim initially declined to comment without first securing Coulibaly's permission. He later said in a text that he had received the entrepreneur's approval but hasn't responded to subsequent messages.
Coulibaly's circle has also included executives at Fanatics, the $31 billion private firm that sells collectibles and sports league apparel, and runs a sportsbook where Coulibaly has placed bets.
Coulibaly says the company has hosted him at special VIP events attended by athletes.
"It's kind of just being part of their ecosystem," he says of his embrace by Fanatics.
Asked about the company's relationship with Coulibaly, a spokesman said he was a user of its gambling platform and didn't respond to follow-up queries.
Barron's sought comment from all of the individuals identified as clients on Coulibaly's e-commerce pitch deck for whom contact information was available, either directly or through an agent. All either declined to comment or didn't respond to messages. It wasn't clear whether they know they were included in the deck.
In a report submitted earlier this year to federal and state authorities, two of the players interviewed by Barron's allege that Coulibaly sold them an unregistered investment for a business that generates no actual income, seemingly relying instead on new participants to pay existing ones.
The report, sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Philadelphia office, and the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, was filed by Barry Minkow, a convicted fraudster turned freelance investigator of financial scams.
Minkow is working the case for a share of any recovered funds above the investors' losses, according to the report, which was viewed by Barron's.
The SEC, the FBI, and the Pennsylvania banking regulator declined to comment.
Barron's examined the mechanics of the alleged fraud through conversations with the former athletes and by viewing contracts and Shopify merchant dashboards.
In exchange for investments of at least $50,000, Coulibaly offered the athletes the opportunity to become the owners of ready-made e-commerce sites. He guaranteed investors a return of their principal after six months, plus 80% of any profits from the sites.
After the investment was made, Coulibaly provided shop owners with Shopify login credentials to access their stores' internal dashboards. The dashboards, filled with fake entries, gave the appearance of healthy businesses.
The websites became the first phase of a longer recruitment process. The Dailyprodtrend owner says his store's seeming success primed him to place an even bigger bet with Coulibaly when the entrepreneur presented him with what he described as a yet-more lucrative opportunity involving Dubai investment firm Middle East Venture Partners.
The returns from that deal haven't materialized.
Coulibaly told Barron's his investors haven't gotten returns from the deal because he himself hasn't received expected funds from Middle East Venture Partners.
"We're trying to figure out, 'Hey, what's going on with you guys?'" he says of the firm. "We're not really sure if they're going through some financial issues currently."
Middle East Venture Partners didn't respond to requests for comment.
In his Instagram feed, Coulibaly poses with athletes including Nakobe Dean and Jalen Carter -- both members of the Philadelphia Eagles' 2026 Super Bowl championship team.
An Instagram account for Motion Apparelz features Dean and the multi-platinum-selling rapper YG promoting the brand's designs.
Dean and Carter, along with fellow former Eagles champion Terrell Edmunds, have also been frequent commenters on Coulibaly's Instagram images, posting sparkle emojis and other flattering reactions to his posts.
Mark McKenzie, who played for the U.S. men's national team in this year's World Cup, has also posted on Coulibaly's feed.
Coulibaly says he met Edmunds, now with the Raiders, by chance, when the two were waiting for food deliveries outside an apartment building where they both lived.
Edmunds introduced him to Dean and other players.
"As soon as we clicked, it was like one of those things," Coulibaly says. "It was like a match made in heaven."
Edmunds, Dean, Carter, McKenzie, and YG are named as clients on the pitch deck for Coulibaly's e-commerce venture.
An agent for Dean declined to comment. Representatives for Carter, Edmunds, McKenzie, and YG, whose birth name is Keenon Jackson, didn't respond to messages.
Dom DiSandro, an Eagles official whose wide-ranging portfolio with the team encompasses player security, vetted Coulibaly when he began socializing with players and afterward extended him an "open-door policy, " Coulibaly says.
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July 15, 2026 11:09 ET (15:09 GMT)
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