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New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a state court to order the founders of NovaTech and its predecessor AWS Mining to pay $1.37 billion, after the two crypto investment operations took in more than $1 billion from investors worldwide. According to Bitcoinmagazine, the request targets Cynthia and Eddy Petion, who never appeared in court and whom the attorney general’s office says fled the country.
In a statement, James said the operations told investors their money was safe when in reality they were victims of a pyramid scheme, and that the recruiters targeted immigrant and religious communities with promises of a better life before taking their savings.
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Key facts
- The October 22 filing seeks $1.1345 billion in disgorgement and $232.47 million in prejudgment interest, roughly $1.367 billion in total, per Blockonomi.
- Investors deposited $1.1605 billion in cryptocurrency into tracked wallets between August 2019 and May 2023, but only $25.99 million reached a trading platform, where losses reached $18.19 million.
- Investigators traced at least $134.5 million to wallets belonging to Cynthia and Eddy Petion, with a further $4.7 million tied to the earlier AWS Mining scheme.
- An August 2025 default judgment already bars the couple and their companies from the securities, commodities and cryptocurrency industries.
- Four promoters — Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, Ricardo Roy Sr. and James Corbett — agreed to pay nearly $5.98 million and accepted the same industry bans.
How the two schemes worked
AWS Mining sold crypto mining contracts promising 15% to 20% monthly returns and 200% within 15 months before collapsing in 2019. The Petions then launched NovaTech, marketed as a registered hedge fund broker with weekly trading returns of 2% to 4%, which prosecutors say were fabricated.
Records from B2Broker, which supplied NovaTech’s white-label trading platform, indicated that only about $26 million of the deposits was ever traded. Returns to earlier investors came from new deposits rather than trading profits, and when the company collapsed in mid-2023, tens of thousands of investors could not withdraw funds.
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Recruitment ran through prayer groups, WhatsApp chats and Haitian Creole advertising. Crediting Cryptobriefing, the original June 2024 lawsuit alleged more than 200,000 investors were affected worldwide, including over 11,000 in New York.
What the promoters settled for
Blockonomi reported the individual settlement amounts: Zizi agreed to pay $2.9 million, Ciceron $2.05 million, Corbett $750,000 and Roy $275,861, with the money intended for victims.
The reports differ on totals in places. Bitcoinmagazine places the combined investor losses across both operations at more than $1.1 billion, while Blockonomi cites $1.16 billion in deposits and Cryptobriefing describes the figure as more than $1 billion. Cryptobriefing frames the request as about $1.3 billion, whereas Blockonomi breaks the demand down to a $1.367 billion total. Blockonomi also dates the collapse to May 2023; Bitcoinmagazine says mid-2023.
Why it matters
Even a favorable ruling would not immediately return money to victims: collecting on the judgment requires locating and seizing assets, which is harder when defendants are outside US jurisdiction, as Cryptobriefing noted. The roughly $6 million from promoters is a small share of what investors put in. The case also illustrates how New York’s Martin Act lets the attorney general pursue securities fraud without proving intent.
What to watch
The court has still to rule on the $1.37 billion request following the October filing, and any decision may be paired with further settlement announcements as prosecutors work through the remaining defendants.
Sources: Bitcoin Magazine, Blockonomi, Cryptobriefing
