New York Attorney General Letitia James has secured nearly $6 million in settlements from four promoters of the NovaTech and AWS Mining crypto fraud schemes and asked a court to order an additional $1.3 billion in payments from the companies’ founders.
Summary
- New York has secured nearly $6 million from four NovaTech and AWS Mining promoters who misled investors with promises of high returns.
- All four promoters have been permanently banned from the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries.
- Attorney General Letitia James is pursuing another $1.3 billion from NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion after a court issued a default judgment against them.
- NovaTech received more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency from investors, but investigators found that less than $26 million reached its trading platform.
- More than 11,000 New Yorkers were affected by the schemes, which targeted Haitian and other immigrant communities through religious gatherings and social media.
According to an October 22 announcement from the Attorney General’s Office, the settlements involve Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, Ricardo Roy Sr., and James Corbett, who helped promote investment schemes that affected hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, including more than 11,000 New Yorkers.
All four have been permanently barred from participating in the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries. The payments, totaling approximately $5.98 million, will be used to benefit victims of the schemes.
James said the companies had exploited immigrant and religious communities by presenting their investments as safe opportunities to earn substantial profits.
“These scammers targeted immigrant and religious communities with the promise of a better life but instead robbed them of their life savings,” James said.
NovaTech promoters face permanent crypto industry bans
The settlements follow a lawsuit filed by James in June 2024 against NovaTechFx, AWS Mining, their founders, and several promoters accused of running illegal pyramid schemes.
As crypto.news previously reported, the lawsuit accused the companies of targeting Haitian communities through religious gatherings, social media, and WhatsApp groups while promising unusually high investment returns.
The latest agreements require Zizi to pay $2.9 million, Ciceron $2.05 million, Corbett $750,000, and Roy $275,861.
Prosecutors accused the promoters of misleading investors about the investment products, acting as unregistered brokers, and encouraging people to recruit others into the schemes in exchange for commissions.
The state pursued the claims under New York securities laws, including provisions of the Martin Act governing fraudulent investment offerings and unregistered securities activity.
New York demands $1.3 billion from NovaTech founders
Alongside the settlements, James filed a request for monetary relief against NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion, who left the country and failed to respond to the state’s lawsuit.
A New York court issued a default judgment against the couple and related companies on August 4, 2025, finding sufficient evidence of the alleged violations and permanently restricting their participation in cryptocurrency and securities businesses.
The court left the financial award to be determined through a separate proceeding.
In the October 22 court filing, prosecutors calculated $1.134 billion in disgorgement connected to NovaTech, plus approximately $232.5 million in prejudgment interest, bringing the requested amount for that scheme to $1.367 billion.
The filing separately requested approximately $6.15 million, including interest, in connection with AWS Mining.
Investigators calculated that NovaTech received approximately $1.16 billion in investor cryptocurrency through its CoinPayments account between August 2019 and May 2023.
However, records obtained from trading platform provider B2Broker showed that only $25.99 million reached NovaTech’s trading platform, where traders subsequently lost approximately $18.19 million.
Prosecutors deducted the amount transferred for trading when calculating the disgorgement request.
Court records further alleged that Cynthia Petion authorized at least $134.5 million in cryptocurrency transfers from NovaTech’s CoinPayments wallet to wallets belonging to herself and Eddy Petion.
The state said the defendants had not provided the investor records and financial accounting required by the court, leaving investigators unable to identify every victim or fully reconcile the transactions.
How the crypto investment schemes targeted investors
AWS Mining operated before NovaTech and promised investors monthly returns of 15% to 20%, alongside recruitment commissions and claims that investments could double within approximately 15 months.
The company collapsed in 2019 after failing to generate enough revenue to meet its promised payouts.
Following its collapse, the Petions established NovaTech and promoted cryptocurrency and foreign exchange trading packages that supposedly generated weekly profits of 2% to 4%.
Recruitment efforts concentrated on immigrant communities, particularly Haitian New Yorkers, using Haitian Creole advertisements, religious messages, prayer groups, and private messaging channels.
NovaTech claimed to operate as a registered hedge fund broker and told investors they could withdraw their deposits and profits whenever they wanted.
Investigators found that the advertised trading returns were fabricated and that payments to existing investors came from funds deposited by newer participants.
When NovaTech collapsed in 2023, tens of thousands of investors were unable to recover their cryptocurrency.
Federal regulators subsequently charged NovaTech and its promoters in August 2024, alleging that the company had defrauded more than 200,000 investors through a multilevel marketing scheme.
New York continues crypto fraud enforcement
The settlements follow other cryptocurrency enforcement actions pursued by James against companies and executives accused of misleading investors.
On October 9, former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky accepted a lifetime industry ban under a New York settlement involving up to $35 million in conditional payments.
In another case, New York secured more than $5 million from Uphold over its promotion of CredEarn, a cryptocurrency investment product linked to the failed lender Cred LLC.
The Uphold agreement required payments to affected customers who had invested through the platform.
Separately, the NovaTech court filing identified at least 204 AWS Mining victims who invested $930,195, based on records supplied by Ciceron.
Prosecutors said the figure represented only a small portion of the scheme’s investors, while the defendants’ failure to provide a complete accounting prevented investigators from calculating the full losses associated with AWS Mining.
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