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How a ‘Reverend CEO’ Stole Over $1 Billion in a Crypto Scam: Lawsuit
Down Angle Icon An icon shaped like a downward angle. A NovaTech flyer that the New York Attorney General says was used to recruit Haitian immigrants into a pyramid scheme. New York State Supreme Court, New York County
- New York Attorney General Leticia James has filed a lawsuit against crypto platform NovaTechFx.
- The lawsuit alleges that the company defrauded thousands of people, targeting immigrant and religious communities.
- Founder and “Reverend CEO” Cynthia Petion called her investors a “cult,” the lawsuit states.
It was once one of the fastest growing financial platforms on the market. Now, New York’s attorney general says NovaTechFx is just a front for a $1 billion pyramid scheme.
New York Attorney General Leticia James filed a lawsuit against the company and its founders, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, in New York Supreme Court this week.
The lawsuit accuses Pezioni of defrauding thousands of investors around the world, earning “over a billion dollars by promoting two consecutive fraudulent investment schemes.” The lawsuit also names AWS Mining Pty, a cryptocurrency mining platform previously operated by the Petions, as defendants.
In 2022, NovaTechFx was one of the fastest growing online financial services in terms of internet traffic. The company’s website attracted 12.4 million visitors that year, a 518% increase from the previous year.
NovaTechFx falsely advertised itself as a “registered hedge fund broker” and falsely claimed to have licenses to trade cryptocurrencies worldwide, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit accuses the couple of targeting Haitian immigrants in New York to recruit them into the pyramid scheme using local prayer circles.
After founding NovaTechFx in 2019, Cynthia Petion rebranded herself as “Reverend CEO,” claiming that her company was “God’s vision,” the lawsuit states.
However, according to the complaint, in private messages she referred to herself as a “zoo keeper” and her investors as a “cult.”
“People join and follow without thinking… they don’t think,” Petition says in the messages, according to the lawsuit. “I just agree with everything you say.”
According to the complaint, NovaTechFx workers created flyers advertising prayer groups hosted by the company with slogans such as: “A team that prays together stays together and grows together.”
Petions also operated the NovaTechFx website, which the lawsuit alleges is where investors would go to invest in cryptocurrency through the company, according to court documents.
After receiving the payments, which the investors intended to use for trading, NovaTechFx allegedly transferred the funds “to a payment processor that did not exchange cryptocurrencies for NovaTech but simply stored them in NovaTech’s wallets,” court documents state.
The AG’s office says that of the more than $1 billion deposited via the website from 2019 to 2023, NovaTechFx actually only traded about $26 million.
“Thousands of New Yorkers were falsely promised a better life if they simply entrusted their money to NovaTech and AWS Mining, but it was all a lie,” James said in a declaration. “These cryptocurrency companies targeted immigrant and religious communities with promises of financial freedom, but instead stole their money and drained their life savings.
Renold Julien, executive director of Konbit Neg Lakay, a local Haitian nonprofit, said in a statement that most Haitian immigrants come to the United States to escape violence and do not deserve to be exploited.
“I thank Attorney General James for taking this action to protect all New Yorkers. Konbit Neg Lakay is seeking full restitution,” he said.
After the lawsuit was filed, NovaTechFx’s website displayed a message from Cynthia Petion stating that the company had suffered a “data breach” and had temporarily shut down its site.
“We are pleased to inform you that 86% of all official data from the trading platform has been successfully recovered,” the message read. “To enable withdrawals, all accounts have been integrated into a new domain. To regain full access, please log in using your exact details on the website.”
NovaTechFx did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.