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NovaTech founders accused Ponzi of $1 billion cryptocurrency targeting Haitians
Overview:
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing NovaTechFX, founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion along with others for allegedly operating a $1 billion Ponzi scheme targeting mostly Haitians in New York through prayer groups and speaking groups creole on social media.
NEW YORK – One of the founders of NovaTech, Eddy Petion, pretended to learn live on video that a fire had broken out in a mine in Paraguay. Another, Cynthia Petion, falsely claimed that the FBI had provided them with a 700-page report proving its legitimacy. Using the title “Reverend CEO,” Cynthia Petion also spoke of the mostly Haitian followers of her cryptocurrency project as “a cult” willing to believe anything to become millionaires.
“When asked where the money goes…keep it vague,” Cynthia Petion said. “They have no idea where the payment processor is sending it. You can finance a housing project, buy a new car, or fill your swimming pool with bitcoin.”
After years of such behavior, on June 6, authorities officially charged the pair with defrauding Haitians through their cryptocurrency investment platform. NovaTechFX. New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced that his office filed the lawsuit after an investigation revealed that over four years NovaTech allegedly defrauded at least 11,000 New York-based investors among hundreds of thousands worldwide, facilitated cryptocurrency transactions worth more than $1 billion dollars and traded only about $26 million.
Under accusation are Nova Tech; Cynthia Petion, CEO, and Eddy Petion, COO; and mainly AWS Mining. Others named in the lawsuit include top boosters and recruiters James Corbett, Martin Zizi and Frantz Ciceron; and several companies linked to the group: NovaTech Advisors, NovaPay, Kings Multi Services Agency, Trinity of Success and Positive Vision Marketing.
“Thousands of New Yorkers were falsely promised a better life if they simply trusted NovaTech and AWS Mining with their money, but it was all a lie,” James said in a press release. “They targeted minority communities, particularly Haitians, in prayer groups and WhatsApp group chats with advertisements in Creole and religious messages appealing to their faith.”
The announcement sparked new ramifications Monday in a Haitian community still processing the request EminiFX Crypto Fraud led by Eddy Alexandre who defrauded at least 25,000 investors of over $250 million. He, too, used the religious community and Creole-language spaces to recruit investors in what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme.
“People should not prey on our community,” senior pastor Sam Nicolas said Evangelical Crusader Christian Church in Brooklyn. “They should pray for our community.
How the NovaTech program worked
In the NovaTech case, prosecutors say, the Petions first worked through AWS Mining, where they were the top recruiters. The Australia-based company, which defunct in 2019, promised high returns for investors by “mining” cryptocurrency, a process by which specialized computers verify cryptocurrency transactions and generate new cryptocurrency.
When AWS Mining collapsed, Pezioni opened NovaTechFx, falsely claiming it was a hedge fund broker. They and their promoters also continued to use the name AWS Mining, this time falsely telling people that it was a real mining company extracting minerals from the earth as a source of revenue. Foreign exchange (FX) and cryptocurrency trading were other income streams, they said.
Corbett, Zizi and Ciceron allegedly helped Petions recruit thousands of people, including Haitians from New York and New Jersey, through numerous Zoom presentations, YouTube videos, WhatsApp and Telegram group chats, emails and in-person meetings to persuade their networks in the community.
Ciceron, for example, appeared in a weekly segment of the TV program Haiti Premiere Classe in 2018 and 2019. Corbett and Zizi, known as “Pastor Bob” and “Dr. Zizi,” respectively, often held prayer groups and so-called “opportunity calls” and “college lectures” in English and Creole The Petions also held at least one event at their home in West Islip, N.Y., and made presentations elsewhere in the area.
Overall, the accused made a series of false promises, including weekly profits of 2% to 4%, monthly returns of 15% to 20%, investment returns of 200% within 15 months, and bonuses for recruiting new investors. In reality, neither company ever generated enough profit to pay the promised profits and bonuses, the attorney general said. When NovaTech claimed to pay weekly trading profits, the funds actually came from other investors’ money, prosecutors said.
Even after the markets crashed in the spring of 2022, the lawsuit alleges, Petions maintained the charade of providing high returns on a weekly basis. Privately, they withdrew millions from NovaTech accounts, secretly sold their Florida home, and fled to Panama in June 2022.
When investors asked to cash out their crypto accounts, NovaTech initially made up elaborate lies to cover up their fraud. They extolled “faith over fear” as a mentality to prevent investors from making withdrawals. They also told crazy stories like the FBI report that Cynthia Petion said she burned herself after reading and the Paraguay mine fire. In that ploy to terminate the alleged mining contracts, prosecutors say, Eddy Petion pretended to receive a phone call, during a YouTube show, telling him that one of their mining farms had caught fire.
Cynthia Petion also allegedly told Zizi to flee the country, writing, “they can’t serve you if they can’t find you… lol.”
Illegal activity suspected for some time
Among the at least 200,000 investors who signed up until NovaTech’s collapse in May 2023 are 11,000 in New York City, Westchester, Long Island and Rockland and Orange counties.
“I preach all the time about pyramid scams,” Nicolas said, adding that he made a presentation warning the faithful. “I tell them: ‘magouyè if magouyè [scammers are scammers].”
Yet, people continue to join get-rich-quick schemes. From airline ownership to real estate flips, from fake nursing degrees to scam du jour to cryptocurrency, such affinity schemes thrive through trusted networks like prayer groups.
When the EminiFX case broke, Novatech was among the few platforms that commentators said law enforcement should investigate. Even in cryptocurrency circles, its legitimacy has been questioned.
Renold Julien, executive director of Konbit Neg Lakay, Rockland County’s Haitian/American community center, told the Haitian Times on Monday that these scams have been going on in the community for too long. Julien said a Haitian couple he met told him they had invested $69,000 in Novatech and were saving to buy a house.
“The guy, him and his wife, are crying,” Julien said. “Here in Rockland County, too many people have been exploited. It’s all they have after working two, three, four jobs.
“I’m happy that she [James] decided to follow the case,” he added. “This is exactly what Haitians need to understand. The more organized we are, the more results we can achieve for our employees.”
Investors privately vilified as ‘cult’
One noteworthy aspect of the Novatech narrative that prosecutors laid out in the complaint is the brazen attitude of major traders in allegedly disparaging Novatech investors for their lack of financial knowledge. While the defendants billed their company as a way to boost their financial position, they privately mocked would-be investors
Cynthia Petion renamed herself “Reverend CEO”, called herself and her husband “the visionaries”, and proclaimed that NovaTech was “God’s vision”. In private chats with Zizi, she called herself a “zoo keeper,” her investors were “a cult,” and she dismissed Zizi’s suggestion that NovaTech was like a country club.
“’In a club people know what they’re signing up for” while in NovaTech “people join and follow without thinking… They don’t think. I just agree with everything you say,’” Ms. Petion was quoted as saying.
And, while they touted “their plans as a train to “financial freedom” and “freedom from plantations,” the lawsuit dates back, Cynthia Petion said ‘[it’s] never those who grew up rich and invest in these programs.’
Zizi also once wrote to Cynthia Petion: “Some people will never see the vision you see at NovaTech… Focus and recruit the visionaries.”
Cynthia Petion would later respond, “They see it when you drive by in that Bentley.”
It is unclear where the defendants are located, although Petion may be living in Panama.
A message sent Monday via the NovatechFX site was not immediately returned. A phone number listed online for Cicero has been disconnected.