New York’s attorney general is asking a court for $1.37 billion: NovaTech’s founders fled, but they still have to answer for the money.
On October 22, New York Attorney General James announced that four NovaTech promoters had reached a settlement, agreeing to pay nearly $5.98 million in total and accept lifetime bans from the securities, commodities, and crypto industries.
That same day, prosecutors filed another motion asking the court to order founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion to pay about $1.37 billion: $1.1345 billion in principal and $232.5 million in interest.
Prosecutors’ records show that from August 2019 to May 2023, of the $1.1605 billion in crypto deposited by investors, only $25.99 million was sent to the trading platform B2Broker—and it lost $18.19 million.
At least $134.5 million went into the founders’ own wallets.
I think the most disturbing thing about this case isn’t the amount, but that almost none of the money was ever traded: the so-called 2% to 4% weekly returns were basically paid to earlier investors with money from new ones.
I see this case as a sign of regulators pursuing fugitives, not as a signal that victims will get their money back: the founders have fled the U.S., and how much they’ll be ordered to pay—and how much will actually be recovered—are both unknown.
If the court later orders them to pay the full amount, or a substantial amount of assets is recovered, this assessment will no longer hold.
What do you think will happen with these astronomical claims against founders who fled—will most of the money be recovered, or will the court just hand down a big number that looks good on paper?
$BTC $ETH $SOL #NovaTech #CryptoRegulation