New York Attorney General Letitia James has moved to recover $1.367 billion from NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion over an alleged Ponzi scheme that collected more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency from investors while sending only a small fraction to actual trading. The request includes $1.134 billion in disgorgement and approximately $232.5 million in prejudgment interest. A separate filing requested about $6.15 million, including interest, tied to the earlier AWS Mining scheme.
The enforcement action follows a default judgment issued against the Petions and related companies on August 4, 2025. According to court filings, NovaTech received roughly $1.16 billion in investor crypto through its CoinPayments account between August 2019 and May 2023. However, records from trading platform provider B2Broker showed that only $25.99 million reached NovaTech’s trading platform, where traders lost about $18.19 million. Prosecutors also alleged that Cynthia Petion authorized at least $134.5 million in crypto transfers from NovaTech’s wallet to personal wallets belonging to herself and Eddy Petion.
The office also announced that four promoters—Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, Ricardo Roy Sr., and James Corbett—have settled for nearly $6 million and accepted permanent bans from the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries. Zizi will pay $2.9 million, Ciceron $2.05 million, Corbett $750,000, and Roy $275,861. The payments will be used to benefit victims.
Investigators said the schemes targeted Haitian and other immigrant communities through religious gatherings, social media, and private messaging groups. AWS Mining, which operated before NovaTech, promised monthly returns of 15% to 20% before collapsing in 2019. The Petions then launched NovaTech and promoted crypto and foreign exchange trading packages supposedly generating weekly profits of 2% to 4%. Court filings also identified at least 204 AWS Mining victims who invested $930,195, though prosecutors said this represented only a small portion of the scheme’s investors. When NovaTech collapsed in 2023, tens of thousands of investors were unable to recover their funds.
“These scammers targeted immigrant and religious communities with the promise of a better life but instead robbed them of their life savings,” James said. The case adds to recent New York crypto enforcement actions, including a lifetime industry ban for former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky and a more than $5 million settlement with Uphold over its promotion of CredEarn.
