New York seeks $1.37B from NovaTech founders who fled the US

New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a court to order the founders of crypto trading firm NovaTech, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, to pay about $1.37 billion, after a default judgment issued in August 2025 when the couple left the country. Her office announced the request on Thursday, Oct. 22, together with settlements with four of the scheme's top promoters (press release).

The numbers in the filing

According to the state's court filing, dated Oct. 21:

• Investors deposited $1,160,544,294 in cryptocurrency with NovaTech through its CoinPayments account between August 2019 and May 2023.
• Only $25,994,603 went to trading-platform provider B2Broker, where traders then lost about $18.19 million. The state deducted that amount and seeks $1,134,549,691 in disgorgement.
• Adding $232,473,894 in prejudgment interest brings the NovaTech claim to $1,367,023,585.
• A further $6.15 million or so, including interest, is sought over AWS Mining, an earlier scheme, part of it from Cynthia Petion personally.
• At least $134.5 million left NovaTech's wallet for wallets belonging to the Petions, with Cynthia authorising the transfers, The Block reports, citing the filing.

How the scheme worked

The attorney general says the Petions first promoted AWS Mining, which promised 15–20% a month and 200% within 15 months before collapsing in 2019. They then launched NovaTech, which falsely claimed to be a registered hedge fund broker licensed to trade crypto in the US and advertised profits of about 2–4% a week. Payouts and recruitment bonuses came from new investors' money, not trading, the state says.

The promoters targeted Haitian and other immigrant communities, often through prayer groups and WhatsApp chats with messages in Haitian Creole. More than 11,000 New Yorkers were among hundreds of thousands of investors worldwide.

The promoters' settlements

Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, Ricardo Roy Sr. and James Corbett will together pay nearly $6 million for the benefit of victims and are permanently banned from the securities, commodities and crypto industries. The Petions were already barred by the 2025 default judgment, which left the money question for a separate hearing.

What it means for victims

A court still has to rule on the amount, and with the founders abroad, collecting it is another matter. New York first sued in June 2024; the SEC filed its own fraud case against NovaTech and the Petions that August.

Promises of fixed weekly returns and bonuses for recruiting friends are textbook warning signs. Our checklist on how to spot crypto scams covers them, and custodial vs non-custodial wallets explains why handing coins to an unregulated "trader" means giving up control of them.