NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion could be on the hook for nearly $1.37 billion after Attorney General Letitia James asked a New York court to target the couple almost four years after they fled the United States in mid-2022.
So far, authorities have only recovered $5.98 million, mainly from settlements with promoters, which pales in comparison with the losses that the NovaTech scheme caused customers.
That tiny recovery figure frustrates any hopes of victim repayment.
New York wants to collect $1.37 billion from NovaTech founders
The $1.37 billion figure that New York AG James is pursuing from the Petions splits as $1.13 billion in disgorgement and another $232.5 million in prejudgment interest.
The request is an inquest process that allows the court to assign a dollar figure after liability is already settled.
Liability was settled in the NovaTech case in August 2025 via a default judgment as Cynthia and Eddy Petion, who have since fled the country, never answered the lawsuit.
The NovaTech couple used to live in Wellington, Florida, until roughly May 2022. As of August 2024, the SEC placed Cynthia Petion in Panama.
A judgment against two people outside US jurisdiction, with no records produced, is a claim on paper more than a path to recovery.
That news lands as fresh frustration for the more than 11,000 New Yorkers who lost tens of millions of dollars putting money into NovaTech and the Petion’s earlier AWS Mining program.
While the Petions remain at large, four promoters of the scheme, Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, James Corbett and Ricardo Roy Sr., have agreed to pay disgorgement for victims
Zizi will pay $2.9 million, Ciceron $2.05 million, Corbett $750,000, and Roy Sr. $275,861. They were also permanently banned from the securities, commodities, and crypto industries.
The Petions mismanaged investors’ funds
The New York AG’s office found big accounting gaps when it looked into the $1.16 billion in cryptocurrency that investors put into NovaTech wallets between August 2019 and May 2023.
Only $25.99 million of that sum was actually sent from the company to trading provider, B2Broker. Traders lost $18.19 million of that total.
The attorney general says NovaTech operated more like a pyramid scheme than a real trading platform, paying supposed profits and recruitment bonuses with new deposits.
Per the filing by James’ office, Cynthia Petion authorized withdrawals of at least $134.5 million to wallets linked to her and her husband.
NovaTech exploited trust
NovaTech’s marketing exploited the trust that customers had for their recruiters, especially targeting Haitian immigrant and religious communities’ social media and WhatsApp prayer groups and chats. Haitian Creole advertisements were also part of their strategy.
Victims believed that they could pull out their funds anytime since they were told NovaTech was a registered hedge fund broker licensed to trade crypto in the US.
It was the founders’ second scheme. AWS Mining, which promised 15% to 20% monthly returns, collapsed in 2019 before NovaTech launched.
The SEC, which charged the Petions and six promoters over a $650 million fraud touching more than 200,000 investors worldwide, said NovaTech reported weekly gains of 2% to 3% while trading only a fraction of deposits. It collapsed in May 2023.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.