New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking a court to order NovaTech founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion, and related companies, to pay about $1.37 billion after the couple fled the U.S. and failed to respond to the state's lawsuit. Four top promoters agreed to pay nearly $6 million to benefit victims and are permanently barred from the securities, commodities and crypto industries. The state says the scheme targeted immigrant communities, particularly Haitian New Yorkers, through prayer groups, social media and WhatsApp, drawing more than 11,000 New Yorkers with advertised returns of 2% to 4% a week. In reality, NovaTech sent just under $26 million to its trading provider and lost about $18.2 million, while weekly payouts came from new investors' deposits. When NovaTech collapsed in 2023, tens of thousands of investors could not withdraw their funds.
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- New York AG seeks $1.37B from NovaTech founders over Ponzi scheme
New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a court to order NovaTech's founders, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, and related companies to pay $1.37 billion, including about $1.13 billion in investor funds and $232.5 million in interest, following a default judgment in August 2025. Four people who recruited investors have separately agreed to pay nearly $6 million in settlements for victims. The AG's office said more than 11,000 New Yorkers lost tens of millions of dollars through NovaTech and the earlier AWS Mining scheme, with promoters targeting Haitian and other immigrant communities through prayer groups, social media and WhatsApp. Investors deposited about $1.16 billion into NovaTech's crypto wallets between August 2019 and May 2023, but only about $26 million went to trading provider B2Broker, and a separate motion seeks about $6.15 million over AWS Mining, including interest.
- Brazil Court Orders US$19.8M Crypto Freeze
Brazil's Federal Police launched Operation São Silvestre on 22 October, executing 12 search warrants in 10 municipalities across five states against an alleged pyramid scheme built on cryptocurrency and trading robots. A court ordered up to BRL 100 million (about US$19.8 million) of assets frozen for 15 individuals and 13 companies. Police estimate more than 10,000 people lost money between 2018 and 2020, in several Brazilian states and abroad. The platforms allegedly promised daily returns of 2% to 3%, or 10% to 70% a month, which the Federal Police say is incompatible with the market. Suspects are being investigated for criminal association, fraud, money laundering, and crimes against the national financial system and capital markets; the freeze aims to preserve property for possible victim compensation, but the PF has not named any suspect or said whether anyone was arrested.
- China seeks to seize 61,800 BTC tied to $5.7 billion fraud scheme
Chinese prosecutors are seeking to confiscate more than 61,800 bitcoin and other assets tied to an alleged $5.7 billion fraud that affected more than 102,000 investors. They say Qian Zhimin's company sold unlicensed wealth-management products, used investor money to repay earlier participants and fund fake projects, and left victims with nearly 20 billion yuan in losses. Qian fled China in 2017 and settled in Britain, where authorities seized his assets, including the bitcoin. A Tianjin court has accepted the request and opened a six-month window for interested parties to join the case, while a UK High Court ruled that Chinese law should govern victims' claims to the bitcoin seized in Britain.
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Binance has joined international law enforcement agencies and global technology companies in a coordinated crackdown on scam networks operating from West Africa. The operation, known as Joint Disruption Week, led to 28 arrests across Ghana and Nigeria.
- Trump didn‘t mention ‘crypto’ once in White House cybercrime roundtable
At a White House cybercrime roundtable, President Trump said “countless” Americans lost more than $20 billion in 2025 to cybercrime and that federal officials froze $1 billion in “cybercurrency” tied to foreign scammers. Neither Trump nor Attorney General Todd Blanche explicitly mentioned cryptocurrency or digital assets, even though reports before the event had signaled a focus on crypto scams. The FBI reported that Americans lost $11 billion in 2025 to scams involving digital assets, including through crypto ATMs. The article also points to Trump family crypto ventures, which netted him $1.4 billion in 2025 according to a Public Citizen report, while his alleged schemes cost investors about $4.7 billion. Separately, Italian police arrested 30 people in a crypto money-laundering scheme.
- Crypto exchanges Binance, Coinbase join West Africa scam sweep that flagged $11 million
Authorities in Ghana and Nigeria arrested 28 people in a crackdown on West African scam networks, including cryptocurrency investment fraud, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Private-sector partners flagged $11 million in funds that could be frozen, a figure not yet confirmed as recovered, while some crypto seizures were reported without values. Coinbase and Binance joined blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis, Elliptic and TRM Labs, and Coinbase said it prevented more than $415,000 in potential losses. Meta removed more than 3.7 million Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups, and participants provided leads on more than 30 suspected scam centers. The operation, hosted by the UK's National Crime Agency, was the first joint effort focused on West Africa, and 117 trafficking victims in Ghana were awaiting repatriation to Nigeria.
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