New York is asking a court for $1.3 billion from the founders of NovaTech, a crypto scheme that hit more than 11,000 New Yorkers, as four promoters settle.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking a court to make the founders of a crypto scam pay about $1.3 billion. The couple, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, ran NovaTech and an earlier scheme called AWS Mining. Four of their promoters have already settled for about $5.98 million and are permanently banned from the securities, commodities and cryptocurrency industries.
The state announced the settlements on October 22. Martin Zizi will pay $2.9 million, Frantz Ciceron $2.05 million, James Corbett $750,000 and Ricardo Roy Sr. $275,861. The money will be used to benefit victims. The Petions left the country and never answered the lawsuit. A New York court issued a default judgment against them on August 4, 2025, and left the dollar amount for a separate proceeding.
Investigators say NovaTech received about $1.16 billion in investor cryptocurrency between August 2019 and May 2023. Records from a trading platform provider showed only $25.99 million reached NovaTech's trading platform. Traders there lost about $18.19 million. Prosecutors also allege Cynthia Petion authorized at least $134.5 million in transfers to wallets belonging to herself and Eddy Petion.
The $1.367 billion request for NovaTech is made up of $1.134 billion in disgorgement, which means giving back money gained wrongly, plus about $232.5 million in interest. A separate request of about $6.15 million covers AWS Mining.
AWS Mining promised monthly returns of 15% to 20% and paid commissions for recruiting others. It collapsed in 2019. NovaTech then promised weekly profits of 2% to 4% and told investors they could withdraw whenever they wanted. Investigators found the returns were fabricated and that older investors were paid with money from newer ones. That is the basic design of a pyramid scheme.
More than 11,000 New Yorkers were affected. The schemes targeted Haitian and other immigrant communities through religious gatherings, prayer groups, social media and WhatsApp, with ads in Haitian Creole. Federal regulators charged NovaTech and its promoters in August 2024, alleging it defrauded more than 200,000 investors.
The court has not yet set the final amount. The state says the defendants did not hand over investor records and financial accounting, so investigators cannot identify every victim or fully trace the money. It is not clear from the material how much of the $1.3 billion could ever be collected.
Be wary of any investment that promises steady high returns or pays you to recruit friends, especially when a trusted community group is pitching it.
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