Four men must give up $6 million tied to a crypto pyramid scheme that spread through Haitian prayer groups and WhatsApp chats, New York's attorney general says.
Four men have agreed to hand over a combined $6 million in profits from a crypto scheme that went after Haitian communities, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday. Her office calls it an illegal pyramid scheme. It reached hundreds of thousands of victims, including more than 11,000 New Yorkers. Two of the four men live on Long Island.
The men are Frantz Ciceron of Farmingdale, James Corbett of Mastic Beach, Ricardo Roy Sr. of Ridgewood, and Martin Zizi, who grew up in Queens and now lives in Kennesaw, Georgia. Each reached a separate settlement. The state says they acted as unregistered brokers and made false and misleading statements while selling investments for two crypto companies. All four are barred from the securities, commodities and cryptocurrency industries.
The state's June 2024 lawsuit named NovaTechFx, a crypto trading company, and AWS Mining Pty Ltd, a crypto mining company. AWS Mining promised returns of 15 to 20 percent a month, and 200 percent within 15 months. It never delivered and collapsed in 2019.
The state says the founders of NovaTech, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, then started a similar pitch built around trading. NovaTech falsely claimed to be a licensed crypto trading platform. It targeted Haitian communities in prayer groups and WhatsApp chats, using ads in Haitian Creole and religious messages.
Of more than $1 billion in crypto deposited with NovaTech, less than $26 million was ever traded, the state says. The platform collapsed in May 2023, and investors could not get their money back.
Ciceron's lawyer says he was an early investor who ended up a net winner through no wrongdoing of his own. The settlement includes no finding or admission of wrongdoing, the lawyer said. Corbett's lawyer says he did not target Haitian Creole or religious communities and had only 21 direct recruits. He says Corbett did not do enough checking but did not mean to mislead anyone. Roy's lawyer declined to comment. Zizi's lawyer did not respond.
The case shows how a scam can travel through trust. The pitch did not come from strangers. It came through faith groups and group chats. These are the red flags in this story:
James has asked the New York State Supreme Court to order the Petions to pay $1.3 billion in damages and unjust enrichment. Court documents describe them as a married couple who fled the country last year. The material does not say whether any settlement money will go to victims, or when the court will rule.
Promises of 15 to 20 percent monthly returns are a red flag, even when they come from a friend, a prayer group or a group chat.
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