At a glance
- New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a state court on Thursday to order NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion to pay damages and disgorgement, her office said. The office puts the figure at $1.3 billion; its court filing itemises $1,367,023,585 for the NovaTech claims.
- Four of the scheme’s top promoters, Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, James Corbett and Ricardo Roy Sr., will pay nearly $6 million in total and are permanently banned from the securities, commodities and crypto industries, the office said.
The attorney general sued NovaTechFx and AWS Mining Pty Ltd in June 2024. Her office says the companies ran pyramid schemes that targeted immigrant communities, particularly Haitian New Yorkers, through prayer groups, social media and WhatsApp chats.
The setup
According to the office, AWS Mining promised investors 15% to 20% a month and collapsed in 2019. The Petions then started NovaTech, which the office says falsely marketed itself as a registered hedge fund broker and advertised trading profits of about 2% to 4% a week.
More than 11,000 New Yorkers invested and lost tens of millions of dollars, the office says. Investors worldwide deposited more than $1 billion in crypto between August 2019 and April 2023, yet less than $26 million was ever traded, it says. NovaTech collapsed in May 2023, leaving tens of thousands of investors unable to withdraw.
The filing, by Senior Enforcement Counsel Tanya Trakht in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, sets out the arithmetic:
- Investors deposited $1,160,544,294 in crypto to NovaTech’s wallet at payment processor CoinPayments between 15 Aug 2019 and 23 May 2023.
- The office subtracts $25,994,603 that NovaTech sent to the trading platform B2Broker. NovaTech’s traders lost $18,189,417 of it, the filing says.
- That leaves $1,134,549,691 in disgorgement, plus $232,473,894 in pre-judgment interest.
The filing also asks for $1,455,666 from AWS Mining and $4,694,712 from Cynthia Petion over the AWS Mining claims. It says she authorised at least $134,518,775 in crypto withdrawals to wallets belonging to her and Eddy Petion.
The stakes
The court issued a default order and judgment against the Petions, NovaTech and AWS Mining on 4 Aug 2025, after they failed to appear, the filing says. The attorney general’s release says the judgment came “after the couple fled the country” and also banned the Petions from the three industries. CryptoWatchDesk could not find a public response from the Petions or a lawyer acting for them.
The promoters’ payments are settlements. Here are the amounts the office listed:
- Martin Zizi: $2.9 million
- Frantz Ciceron: $2.05 million
- James Corbett: $750,000
- Ricardo Roy Sr.: $275,861
In Roy’s published agreement, an assurance of discontinuance, he neither admits nor denies the office’s findings. CryptoWatchDesk has not reviewed the other three agreements.
The $1.37 billion figure is the attorney general’s request; the court has not yet ruled on it.
The read
A default judgment settles liability on paper. Collecting is another matter when the defendants are abroad, and the release does not say what assets, if any, have been located.
The promoters’ money is earmarked “for the benefit of victims,” the office says, but the release gives no claims process yet. It is the office’s second crypto industry ban this month, after the lifetime industry ban on Alex Mashinsky.
What happens next
The filing starts an inquest, the step that fixes the amount owed after a default. The court now decides what to award.
Watch for a hearing date on the docket (Index No. 451633/2024) and for any notice from the office on how victims can claim the settlement money.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.