The New York Attorney General’s Office is seeking about $1.37 billion from NovaTech’s founders in a case involving investor funds.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking the return of $1.13 billion in ill-gotten gains from Cynthia and Eddy Petion, along with $232.5 million in prejudgment interest. The request was submitted to the court after a default judgment was entered in August 2025 because the couple failed to respond to the lawsuit.
The court filing alleges that investors deposited more than $1.16 billion in cryptocurrency with NovaTech and that some of the funds were transferred to wallets linked to the founders.
More than $1.16 billion in crypto was deposited with NovaTech
According to the filing, which cites CoinPayments records, more than $1.16 billion in cryptocurrency was deposited into a NovaTech wallet between August 2019 and May 2023. During the same period, at least $134.5 million was transferred to wallets belonging to the founders; the filing says Cynthia Petion approved the transfers.
The Attorney General’s Office alleges that NovaTech paid purported trading profits and recruitment bonuses with funds from new investors, not actual trading revenue. The filing also states that the company deposited $25.99 million with trading platform provider B2Broker between August 2019 and April 2023, and that traders lost $18.19 million of that amount.
The case is part of a lawsuit James filed in June 2024 against NovaTech and crypto mining company AWS Mining, alleging that they operated illegal pyramid schemes. The Attorney General’s Office said the Petions later left the country.
In a separate development related to the case, four promoters agreed to return approximately $6 million to victims and were permanently barred from working in the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries.
Not investment advice.