'Jesus was the best affiliate marketer in the world': How a 'Reverend CEO' allegedly stole $1 billion in a crypto scam

By Lukas I. Alpert

Investigators accuse Cynthia and Eddy Petion of ripping off tens of thousands of investors in their NovaTechFX scam that largely targeted low-income immigrants

Cynthia Petion claimed the idea to start a crypto investing platform came to her while she was brushing her teeth one morning, like a "vision from God."

So she formed NovaTechFX in 2019 and declared herself "Reverend CEO," pitching her service to churchgoing members of America's Haitian community, promising returns of up to 200% within a year.

Over the next three years, investigators say Petion and her husband, Eddy, brought in $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency investments. But it was all a scam - a smoothly-run Ponzi scheme that targeted tens of thousands of investors, mostly poor immigrants, said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Then in 2022, as the scheme was about to collapse, the Petions quietly sold their Florida home and moved to Panama. Soon after, NovaTechFX collapsed, James said.

On Thursday, James filed a lawsuit against the Petions and NovaTech's top executives, seeking to recover the money that was lost and to bar them from ever selling investments in New York state ever again.

"The defendants marketed to investors most in need of income and least able to afford a loss by advertising their schemes as a train to 'financial freedom' and 'freedom from the plantation,'" the suit said. "Cynthia Petion knew that 'it's never the ones who grew up rich who invest in these programs.'"

It wasn't immediately clear Petion and her husband had retained attorneys and a message sent to Cynthia Petion wasn't immediately returned.

While Cynthia Petion presented herself as a God-fearing shepard of her investors' money, proclaiming that "Jesus was the best affiliate marketer in the world," behind the scenes, she callously dismissed those giving her money as mindless sheep, James said in the suit.

"People join and follow mindlessly... They don't think. They just agree with everything you say," the suit quoted Petion as telling a deputy, describing herself as a "zookeeper."

When the deputy told Petion that "some people will never see the vision you see in NovaTech," the suit quoted her as replying: "They see it when you drive by in that Bentley."

James' suit said the NovaTech scam was born out of the ashes of an earlier crypto fraud called AWS Mining that fell apart in 2019. In that scheme, James said Petion told investors that their money would be used to finance a crypto-mining operation in Paraguay that would generate returns of up to 200% in 15 months.

But that too was a Ponzi scheme, James said, with the money being used primarily to line the pockets of the top people running the scam and to pay out earlier investors. That scheme also targeted members of the Haitian community, James said.

As the scheme began to unravel, Petion and some of her top lieutenants began a ploy in which they would pretend to receive a phone call during an investor meeting claiming that the crypto-mining facility had caught fire and burned down, the suit said. The defendants used this ruse at multiple investor events, in some cases even showing video of the site purportedly on fire.

Tens of millions of dollars were lost as a result of the AWS scheme, the suit said.

Following the collapse of AWS, Petion began the new scam, the lawsuit said, this time with a religious theme and more firmly focused on religious Haitians. Taking out ads in Haitian Creole on social media and on Haitian media platforms, the NovaTech scheme offered high returns, claiming the money would be used to invest in cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange.

Of the nearly $1 billion that came in, James said only about $26 million was ever actually invested. The rest was kept by the high-level operators of the group or to pay out earlier investors, the suit alleged.

In 2022, regulators in several states, including Washington and Wisconsin, began sending cease-and-desist orders to the Petions, claiming they weren't licensed investment brokers and couldn't legally solicit investments in those states.

The fund also drew the attention of officials in Russia, South Africa, Estonia, Nigeria, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the British Virgin Islands and multiple provinces in Canada, which all moved to block NovaTechFX from operating in their countries.

In May 2023, the NovaTech scheme collapsed and investors were no longer able to redeem their money, the suit said.

In the suit, James detailed the situations of several New York investors, including a retired bus driver on disability, who she said lost $200,000 in the scam. In all, James said her office had identified 11,000 New York residents who were duped in the scheme.

Earlier this year, a number of investors filed a $2 billion civil suit against the Petions seeking to recoup their money.

At the time that suit was filled, Cynthia Petion published a post on Instagram (META) stating that she was working to return all the money that was tied up.

"Every day we are working diligently to address this issue and ensure the continued trust and satisfaction of our customers. If your funds are still held within our platform, we encourage you to reach out to us directly so that we can process your payout manually," the post read.

Dozens of replies to the post said that they had been messaging NovaTech for months about their money but had received no reply.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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06-06-24 1703ET

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