NovaTech FX Lawsuit Update: SEC, NY AG, and State Actions

The NovaTech FX lawsuit update as of mid-2026 is this: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s federal case in the Southern District of Florida has produced a clerk’s entry of default against NovaTech Ltd. and founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion, one promoter has settled, five other promoter defendants remain active in the case, and the New York Attorney General’s parallel state suit is still pending. Maryland has issued a final $110 million order against the company and its founders. No default judgment, no criminal charges, and no investor recovery fund exists, and the Petions are believed to still be in Panama.

Where the SEC Case Stands

The SEC filed its civil complaint on August 12, 2024, in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Nova Tech Ltd., et al., Case No. 1:24-cv-23058, assigned to Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga.¹ The complaint names nine defendants: NovaTech Ltd., Cynthia Petion, Eddy Petion, and six promoters — Martin Zizi, James Corbett, Corrie Sampson, Dapilinu Dunbar, John Garofano, and Marsha Hadley.² The SEC alleges NovaTech raised more than $650 million in crypto assets from over 200,000 investors worldwide, violating federal antifraud and securities-registration provisions, and seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.³

Progress has been uneven. Martin Zizi settled almost immediately. Without admitting or denying the allegations, he consented to a $100,000 civil penalty and a permanent injunction, with additional monetary remedies to be set later. The court entered final judgment against Zizi on August 16, 2024.¹

The other five promoter defendants — Corbett, Sampson, Dunbar, Garofano, and Hadley — accepted service and remain active in the case. As of June 2026, none have settled and no defaults have been entered against them. Garofano and Hadley cycled through two rounds of attorney withdrawals before retaining new counsel, Linda Julin McNamara, in January 2026.¹ Four of the six original promoter defendants — Zizi, Corbett, Sampson, and Dunbar — face antifraud charges in addition to the unregistered-securities and unregistered-broker claims, based on allegations they kept recruiting investors and downplayed warnings after learning of regulatory actions.²

Serving the Petions and NovaTech itself has been the slowest piece. The court granted the SEC’s motion for alternative service in January 2026, and affidavits filed in February confirmed the three were served on February 6, 2026. When none responded, the SEC moved to reopen the case (administratively closed in September 2024) and requested a clerk’s entry of default against NovaTech, Cynthia Petion, and Eddy Petion on March 9, 2026.¹ The SEC’s litigation page for the case confirms the clerk’s default has been entered.⁴

A clerk’s default is a procedural step, not a final judgment. It records that the defendants failed to answer, but it does not impose financial penalties. That happens at the default-judgment stage, which the court has not reached. The SEC continues to file status reports on the docket.¹

The New York Attorney General’s Case

On June 6, 2024 — two months before the SEC filed — New York Attorney General Letitia James sued NovaTechFx, AWS Mining, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, and promoters James Corbett, Martin Zizi, and Frantz Ciceron in the Supreme Court of New York. The state’s complaint frames NovaTech and AWS Mining as successive pyramid schemes run by the same people, with combined losses topping $1 billion. More than 11,000 New Yorkers were affected.⁵

The AG is seeking a permanent ban on all defendants from the securities business in New York, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and monetary damages for investors. No settlement or judgment has been reported.

Maryland’s Final Order and Other State Actions

The one major action to reach a final decision is Maryland’s. On July 9, 2025, the Maryland Securities Commissioner issued a final order finding that NovaTech ran an illegal pyramid scheme that defrauded roughly 3,000 Maryland residents of an estimated $110 million. The order finds violations of six sections of the Maryland Securities Act, permanently bars the Petions and all NovaTech entities from the state’s securities business, and imposes a $110 million civil penalty. That penalty can be reduced dollar-for-dollar by any restitution the Petions pay investors within 60 days.⁶

The order also notes that the Petions’ whereabouts remain unknown and that certified-mail service attempts at addresses in Florida, New York, and Estonia were returned as undeliverable.⁶

Other regulators moved earlier. Beginning in the fall of 2022, securities authorities in California, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Washington, and British Columbia issued cease-and-desist orders or public warnings, and Russia’s central bank flagged the platform as a fraud risk.⁷ Those orders preceded NovaTech’s February 2023 freeze of withdrawals and its complete collapse by May 2023.⁶

Why the Founders Remain Out of Reach

Cynthia Petion, the CEO, and Eddy Petion, the COO, sold their home in Wellington, Florida, and relocated to Panama in the fall of 2022 as regulators began issuing orders against the platform.⁸ The SEC’s August 2024 complaint states they were believed to still be in Panama, and that they ignored SEC investigative subpoenas and refused to produce documents or testimony.⁹

No criminal charges have been filed against the Petions in any jurisdiction. The pending cases are civil enforcement actions, which can produce injunctions, monetary penalties, and disgorgement orders, but not arrest warrants.

What Investors Can Realistically Expect

No restitution fund, receivership, or asset freeze has been established in any of the pending NovaTech cases. The SEC is seeking disgorgement, but obtaining a judgment against absent defendants and actually collecting from people who left the country and ignored subpoenas are separate problems. Maryland’s $110 million penalty is structured to encourage restitution, yet the state has been unable to serve the Petions in the first place.⁶

The scale of the shortfall is what makes recovery so difficult. According to the New York Attorney General, between August 2019 and April 2023 investors deposited more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency, while less than $26 million was ever placed on a trading platform.⁵ The SEC alleges the trading that did occur produced roughly $18 million in losses, not the two-to-four percent weekly returns NovaTech reported to investors, and that the weekly performance numbers displayed in investor accounts were fabricated. The SEC also alleges that at least $4.3 million went to Cynthia Petion personally and more than $36.7 million to accounts linked to Eddy Petion.⁹

If you invested with NovaTech, the practical steps are to preserve your records — deposit confirmations, screenshots of account balances, correspondence, and any promoter communications — and to submit them to the SEC and to the attorney general’s office in your state. Maryland residents, in particular, are covered by an active enforcement order. New York residents fall within Attorney General James’s pending suit. For federal purposes, the SEC’s dedicated litigation page for the case is the source that will show any movement from clerk’s default to default judgment, and any later step toward a distribution mechanism.⁴

1
CourtListener. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Nova Tech, Ltd.
2
SEC. SEC Charges NovaTech Operators and Promoters, Litigation Release No. 26072
3
SEC. SEC Charges Operators and Promoters of NovaTech Crypto Investment Scheme
4
SEC. SEC v. NovaTech
5
New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Sues Cryptocurrency Companies NovaTechFX and AWS Mining
6
Maryland Office of the Attorney General. NovaTech Final Order
7
Washington Department of Financial Institutions. Summary Order to Cease and Desist, NovaTech Ltd.
8
Haitian Times. NovaTech Founders Accused in $1 Billion Cryptocurrency Ponzi That Targeted Haitians
9
SEC (Court Filing). SEC v. NovaTech Ltd., Complaint