PANews reported on June 7 that according to Decrypt, New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against two crypto companies suspected of fraud in the state, accusing them of defrauding hundreds of thousands of investors, involving more than $1 billion. The companies sued this time include the crypto exchange NovaTech and the mining company AWS Mining, which are accused of "participating in illegal pyramid schemes" and stealing more than $1 billion in cryptocurrencies from investors, including 11,000 New Yorkers. Letitia James said that the two companies would be banned from doing business in New York and vowed to crack down on cryptocurrency scammers.
AWS Mining and its promoters, including Panamanian residents Cynthia and Eddy Petion, promised investors high returns through cryptocurrency mining operations, but the company was unable to maintain the promised returns for a long time and eventually collapsed in 2019. The Petions then launched NovaTech, continuing to use similar strategies to recruit customers, but investor profits were actually generated by new investor funds. Prosecutors revealed that the platform actually processed only $26 million in cryptocurrency transactions between 2019 and 2023.