Florida Man Sues Alpha Stock Investment Training Center After Being Guided to Invest $860,000 in Fake CoinBridge Partners Exchange
A man from Florida lost approximately $860,000 to a shady crypto trading training center based in Denver, USA. According to the lawsuit filed in federal court, the victim stated that the school introduced him to a fraudulent cryptocurrency exchange, promising life-changing profits from investments, but ultimately it was an elaborate scam.
The victim, Brian Firestone, accused Alpha Stock Investment Training Center (ASITC), a training facility located in Denver, of colluding with CoinBridge Partners, a fake exchange in the Cherry Creek area, to commit fraud. Firestone said he was approached in December by a man claiming to be John Smith, a representative of the school.
Smith offered to guide Mr. Firestone from basic knowledge to advanced technical analysis in crypto trading, even giving him $500 as a starting gift - which was actually a lure to draw the victim into the fraud scheme.
ASITC's website, which is no longer operational, previously listed an address at 1600 Lincoln St and instructed users to conduct all crypto transactions through CoinBridge, a platform claiming to have raised $10 million from 600 investors.
Signal Trading Strategy and Psychological Traps
According to the lawsuit, CoinBridge was actually a fake platform disguised as a legitimate trading exchange. ASITC was accused of using a strategy called signal trading - where "instructors" would send messages to students at different times with specific trading instructions, requiring students to execute trades through CoinBridge accounts.
Firestone said his initial $500 investment from Smith's gift increased to $55,000, which prompted him to invest an additional $50,000 in January. Just a few weeks later, his account balance showed $2 million. He even sent a thank you message to the teacher: "Teacher, I must thank you. The results are amazing. Thank you for letting me trade today. I'm truly excited!"
However, the situation quickly deteriorated after a losing trade that reduced the balance to $12,000. Firestone said he transferred an additional $470,000 in cash and borrowed $330,000 from ASITC to continue trading.
After this additional funding, his CoinBridge account balance showed $24.5 million, until a USDT trade on March 9th could not be executed. Firestone messaged Smith: "I can't close the order... I can't close it." He claimed a "system error" caused issues that led to the entire platform balance being wiped out.
Two days after the incident, Firestone continued to borrow $1 million from ASITC, bringing the total loan value to $6.6 million. However, he could not repay part of the loan because ASITC closed his account on May 1st.
According to the lawsuit, Firestone is accusing ASITC, CoinBridge, John Smith, and platform founder Raymond Torres of fraud, organized racketeering, and asset theft. Meanwhile, an actual CoinBridge Partners entity in Wyoming has denied any involvement in the matter.
According to Ronghui Gu, co-founder of blockchain security company CertiK, since the beginning of 2025, over $2.1 billion has been stolen in crypto-related incidents, mostly originating from wallet security flaws and poor personal key management. The trend indicates that bad actors are shifting from platform source code attacks to direct user attacks.
