New York Attorney General Letitia James is demanding more than $1.3 billion from NovaTech creators Cynthia and Eddy Petion regarding a crypto investment platform that gathered in excess of $1.16 billion in digital asset funds, based on a court document submitted on Thursday.
The filing contends that CoinPayments documentation demonstrates investors transferred $1.16 billion worth of crypto into NovaTech-controlled addresses spanning from August 2019 to May 2023. At minimum, $134.5 million in payouts were directed toward addresses controlled by creators Cynthia and Eddy Petion, with Cynthia sanctioning the movements.
In contrast, the enterprise transferred $25.99 million to liquidity and trading infrastructure provider B2Broker between August 2019 and April 2023, while participants sustained $18.19 million in trading losses during that timeframe, according to the document. Authorities noted that NovaTech distributed supposed trading returns and referral incentives utilizing capital from fresh participants rather than actual trading profits.
The attorney general’s department is pursuing $1.13 billion in restitution along with an additional $232.5 million in interest prior to judgment, pushing the grand total close to $1.37 billion.
This demand arrives on the heels of a default ruling granted in August 2025 after the duo neglected to answer the legal complaint, with James’ office reporting that the Petions have subsequently escaped the nation.
The legal action commenced in June 2024, when James filed suit against NovaTech alongside cryptocurrency mining enterprise AWS Mining, asserting that both entities ran unlawful Ponzi schemes.
“NovaTech and AWS Mining defrauded numerous susceptible New York residents by assuring them they were engaging in a secure venture while they were actually targets of a fraudulent pyramid structure,” James stated in an official announcement. “These fraudsters focused on religious and immigrant populations with assurances of an improved future yet ultimately stripped them of their accumulated life savings.”
In a related development, four individual promoters have consented to surrender roughly $6 million in restitution for affected individuals and face lifetime prohibitions from the digital asset, commodity, and securities sectors.
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-10-23-new-york-seeks-over-1-3-billion-from-novatech-founders-after-couple-fled-the-us-424453.
