An investor from Florida says that he was dropped by a Denver-based trading “school” and a fake Crypto Exchange to $ 860,000, which promised him a life-changing profits.
One in trial Last week filed in the federal court, Brian Firestone alleged that the Alpha Stock Investment Training Center (ASITC), which operates from the downtown Denver, participated with a fraud exchange called Coinbridge Partners in Cherry Creek to carry out the scheme.
Firestone says he was first approached by a person named John Smith in December, claiming to be representing ASITC. Smith introduced Teach cryptocurrency trading And gave him a gift of $ 500 to start.
The trading school website, which is now Defunction, listed its address as 1660 Lincoln Saint and directed users to trade via coinbridge, claiming that $ $ 10 million from 600 investors. “Coinbridge is actually a completely fake exchange,” Firestone wrote in the complaint.
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Crypto School used business signals to woo investors
ASITC allegedly used a method called signal trading. According to the suit, the “professor” will message participants such as Firestones with accurate business instructions at a specific time. Students will then click to execute the business through their coinbridge account.
Firestone says his initial $ 500 quickly increased to $ 55,000, inspired him to invest $ 50,000 more in January. Within weeks, his remaining showed $ 2 million.
“Professor, I should thank you,” Firestone Texted Smith on 8 February. “My results were outstanding. Thank you for going to this business today. It’s very exciting!”
However, there was no enthusiasm. A losing trade allegedly brought its remaining amount to $ 12,000. Firestone then wired $ 470,000 in cash and took a loan of $ 330,000 from Asitc to continue trading. He says that his coinbridge account rose to $ 24.5 million, until on 9 March failed to execute a trade in USDT.
“I can’t close it,” Firestone messaged Smith. “I NCANT Clpsoe it.” Firestone was described as a “system error”, causing mess and erased his balance.
Two days later, he borrowed $ 1 million more than the Asitc, making his account to $ 6.6 million. However, when he could not repay the loan, the ASITC allegedly closed its account on 1 May.
The suit accused Asitc, Coinbridge, Smith and founder Raymond Torres of fraud, theft and racket. Vyoming has real coinbridge partners rejected Any relationship with the alleged scam.
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$ 2.1b crypto stolen in 2025
So far in 2025, over $ 2.1 billion stolen In Crypto-related events, with most losses bound by wallet agreements and major mismanagement, the co-founder of Cartic, Rongu Gu, said. The tendency indicates the increasing innings from the code-based hack to target user behavior.
In 2024 alone, there was a loss of over 1 billion dollars in around 300 incidents in fishing attacks, making it the most harmful way of attack in Crypto Space.
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