New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to have the founder of the collapsed crypto exchange NovaTech pay nearly $1.4 billion. However, James said actually recovering that money could be another matter, as the couple has fled the United States.
This request stems from a default judgment issued in August 2025, following the Petion couple’s departure from the United States without responding to the state’s legal action. The judgment also prohibits them from continuing to operate in the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries.
James first sued NovaTech and AWS Mining in June 2024, accusing them of defrauding investors of over $1 billion. Two months later, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed charges against the Petion couple and others, describing the scheme as a $650 million fraud.
James said in a statement: "These scammers target immigrants and religious communities with promises of a better life, only to steal their life savings."
New York State states that, in reality, NovaTech transferred only slightly less than $26 million to its trading service providers between 2019 and 2023, with approximately $18.2 million in losses. The state says weekly returns and referral bonuses were funded by deposits from new investors. When NovaTech collapsed in 2023, tens of thousands of investors were unable to withdraw their funds.
Data from payment processor CoinPayments shows that investors deposited approximately $1.16 billion in cryptocurrency into the NovaTech wallet between August 2019 and May 2023, with Cynthia Petion being the only authorized user of the account. At least $134.5 million was transferred to wallets belonging to the Petions. After deducting funds used for transactions, the state is seeking approximately $1.13 billion in restitution, plus $232 million in interest.