The legal action marks a significant escalation in the ongoing regulatory crackdown on fraudulent digital asset platforms that weaponize trust within tight-knit communities. According to filings from the Attorney General’s office, the alleged founders of the sprawling schemes, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, have completely failed to appear in court to answer the mounting allegations and have reportedly fled the United States to evade accountability.
The enforcement effort highlights the devastating human and financial toll exacted by sophisticated crypto scams that disguise themselves as legitimate wealth-building opportunities. In a detailed public statement regarding the case, Attorney General James underscored the predatory nature of the operations, emphasizing the specific demographic groups targeted by the masterminds behind NovaTech and AWS Mining.
"NovaTech and AWS Mining scammed thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers by telling them they were making a safe investment when in reality, they were victims of a pyramid scheme," James said in the statement. "These scammers targeted immigrant and religious communities with the promise of a better life but instead robbed them of their life savings."
The fraudulent enterprises did not rely merely on traditional online advertisements or mainstream financial marketing. Instead, the schemes, starting with AWS Mining and later evolving into NovaTech, heavily relied on an extensive network of human promoters who infiltrated immigrant communities. These promoters specifically targeted Haitian and other vulnerable populations, building trust by operating through prayer groups, organizing WhatsApp chats, and running advertisements in Haitian Creole to lower the defenses of prospective participants.
The operational blueprint of the fraud evolved over several years, transitioning from one failed model to an even more ambitious deception. AWS Mining initially operated by selling cryptocurrency mining contracts to unsuspecting buyers, dangling the allure of guaranteed and extraordinary returns. The platform promised investors monthly returns ranging between 15 and 20 percent, alongside an astonishing 200 percent return within a 15-month window. Unsurprisingly, this unsustainable financial architecture collapsed under its own weight in 2019, leaving countless participants empty-handed.
Rather than facing justice or halting their illicit activities, the Petions immediately pivoted and launched NovaTech. The new iteration was aggressively marketed as a registered hedge fund broker, bestowing a false veneer of legitimacy upon the operation. NovaTech enticed new victims by promising weekly trading returns of two to four percent, which compounded to more than 140 percent annually.
However, prosecutors and financial forensics reveal that these promised returns were entirely fabricated. Records obtained from B2Broker, the firm that supplied NovaTech’s white-label trading platform, lay bare the reality behind the company’s glossy facade. Out of more than $1 billion deposited by eager investors between 2019 and 2023, only a minuscule fraction—about $26 million—was ever actually deployed into actual trades. Even worse, NovaTech’s designated traders managed to lose $18.2 million of that traded capital.
Rather than generating wealth through successful cryptocurrency and foreign exchange trading, the scheme operated on classic Ponzi mechanics. Financial returns distributed to earlier investors were funded entirely by newer deposits made by subsequent victims. When the house of cards finally collapsed in mid-2023, tens of thousands of trapped investors discovered they were completely unable to withdraw their funds or recover their principal investments.
The Attorney General’s office is now seeking unprecedented financial restitution to hold the architects of the fraud fully accountable. Alongside the overarching $1.37 billion judgment, the state is specifically targeting $134.5 million that the Petions allegedly siphoned directly from investor accounts into their own personal digital wallets—funds allegedly controlled solely by Cynthia Petion. Furthermore, the state is pursuing an additional $4.7 million directly tied to the earlier AWS Mining scheme.
This financial pursuit builds upon prior legal milestones achieved by the state. A default judgment entered in August 2025 formally barred the runaway couple and their associated corporate entities from participating in the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries entirely, shutting down any future avenues for them to operate within financial markets.
While the primary architects remain fugitives abroad, accountability is also catching up to the human infrastructure that enabled the fraud to spread. In a separate but related development, four of the scheme’s top promoters have reached agreements with regulatory authorities. They have agreed to pay nearly $6 million in disgorgement to be returned to victims, while also accepting permanent bans from the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries, effectively dismantling the local promotional network that fed victims into the NovaTech machine.
