New York Attorney General Letitia James is demanding that the founders of the collapsed crypto trading platform NovaTech, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, pay nearly $1.4 billion in damages. The couple fled the U.S. before an August 2025 default judgment, making the collection of this sum uncertain. James's office filed a request in New York County Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking $1.37 billion in damages, disgorgement, and interest from the Petions, NovaTech, and related companies.
Four top promoters of the scheme, Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, Ricardo Roy Sr., and James Corbett, have agreed to pay nearly $6 million to benefit victims. They are also permanently banned from the securities, commodities, and crypto industries. The scheme primarily targeted Haitian communities through prayer groups, social media, and WhatsApp, attracting over 11,000 New York investors among hundreds of thousands worldwide.
NovaTech falsely advertised itself as a registered hedge fund broker, promising returns of 2% to 4% weekly, or over 140% annually. In reality, the platform sent just under $26 million to its trading provider between 2019 and 2023, losing about $18.2 million. Weekly payouts and recruiting bonuses were funded by new investors' deposits. When NovaTech collapsed in 2023, tens of thousands of investors were unable to withdraw their funds.
Data from payment processor CoinPayments shows that investors deposited roughly $1.16 billion in crypto into NovaTech’s wallet between August 2019 and May 2023. Cynthia Petion was the only authorized user on the account, and at least $134.5 million was transferred to wallets belonging to the Petions. The state is seeking about $1.13 billion in disgorgement, plus $232 million in interest. Before NovaTech, the Petions were top U.S. promoters of AWS Mining, another fraudulent scheme that collapsed in 2019.