Head of magic mushroom church arrested in alleged multimillion-dollar pump and dump scheme

WASHINGTON — The head of a Detroit church that uses magic mushrooms as a religious sacrament was arrested this week on federal charges for allegedly helming a multimillion-dollar pump and dump scheme.

Bobby Shumake Japhia, also known as Robert Samuel Shumake Jr. and Shaman Bobby Shu, was arrested Tuesday on charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice in connection with a criminal investigation into the magic mushroom company Minerco. The company’s CEO, Julius Makiri Jenge, of Virginia, was arrested on a securities fraud charge in August while attempting to board a one-way flight to Zambia.

In charging documents unsealed in Jenge’s case, federal investigators said his CEO title was a sham – that another, unnamed co-conspirator was actually directing his actions in order to artificially inflate Minerco stock. Documents unsealed in federal court in D.C. on Wednesday identified that man as Japhia.

Japhia is the head of Soul Tribes Ministries, which operated a church in Detroit that sold psilocybin mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms, until it was raided by police in 2023, according to CBS News. The church subsequently filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the city, which remains pending.

Japhia also previously pleaded guilty to criminal violations of the Michigan Credit Services Protection Act and federal charges of obtaining money by false pretenses over $1,000 in 2017 in connection to a mortgage fraud scheme.

Investigators say Japhia and Jenge took control of Minerco in late 2019 at a time when the company’s shares were trading for $0.0001 each. Japhia allegedly recruited Jenge to act as the CEO and public face of the company, knowing his prior convictions and other previous negative reporting about him – including a 2018 article about $250,000 being seized from his carry-on luggage at a North Carolina airport – would make it difficult to succeed in his alleged pump and dump scheme. Jenge, unlike Japhia, had no criminal history.

Once they had taken over the company, the SEC alleges Japhia covertly obtained one billion shares of Minerco by having them placed under the purported control of a holding company Japhia and Jenge hard formed under a third person’s. The two then allegedly began pumping up the company’s stock by releasing false and misleading statements and press releases and in a call with investors, including that the company had been acquired by a “specialized investment firm” and “psilocybin research firm.” In fact, the SEC said, the company had been acquired by a Georgia holding company created by Jenge for the sole purpose of taking over Minerco. Jenge also allegedly lied to investors about obtaining an undergraduate accounting degree from the University of Maryland and an MBA from Strayer University – neither of which were true, the SEC said.

Japhia also allegedly continued to conceal his role in the company while misleading financial regulators and posting positive messages about Minero online under the alias “Burntcheeze.”

As a result of Jenge and his alleged co-schemer’s efforts to pump the company – which included announcing musical artist Sean Kingston as an ambassador – the stock reached a high of nearly $0.016 per share in early February 2021. But Japhia had trouble selling his shares, according to charging documents, and eventually enlisted the help of three unnamed co-conspirators and an unnamed company in the United Arab Emirates to sell approximately 928 million Minerco shares in February 2021.

By the time the SEC suspended trading of the stock on May 26, 2021, Japhia had reportedly made approximately $8.4 million from the sale. According to the affidavit, his co-conspirator Jenge was paid approximately $26,000 for his alleged role in pumping the stock.

After the pump and dump scheme succeeded, according to investigators, Japhia abandoned Minerco and began destroying evidence. Investigators reported finding Internet searches make by Japhia such as “deleting text messages for subpoena.”

Japhia was expected to make his initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge in D.C. sometime this week. His co-defendant, Jenge, was released on a $100,000 bond in August and ordered to home incarceration with GPS monitoring.