SEC v. Traffic Monsoon and Charles Scoville (ponzi schemes, 2016)

Judgment entered

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In July 2016 the SEC sued Traffic Monsoon LLC and its owner Charles Scoville over an alleged $207 million Ponzi scheme sold as advertising packs. On January 5, 2021 the District of Utah entered a final judgment against Scoville ordering $2,537,642.93 in disgorgement and a $2,426,749 penalty, with a permanent injunction against soliciting money for the business.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$2.4m

Disgorgement

$2.5m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$5m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The complaint, filed July 26, 2016, alleges the company, begun in October 2014 as a traffic exchange and pay-per-click program, was presented as an advertising business while more than 99 percent of its revenue came from new investor funds.

The allegations are unproven and no final relief had been ordered. The record listed the defendant as "Traffic Monsoon et al."

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The final judgment as to Scoville, signed on January 5, 2021, orders disgorgement of $2,537,642.93, to be applied first to victim compensation, a civil penalty of $2,426,749, and a permanent injunction against soliciting or accepting money for Traffic Monsoon or a substantially similar AdPack business. The judgment as read does not say whether it followed a trial or a settlement, does not address Traffic Monsoon LLC itself, and this page has not checked whether an appeal followed. Checked on 2026-10-04.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2016-07-28 Litigation release published
2. 2021-01-05 Final judgment against Charles Scoville: disgorgement, penalty, injunction

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release
• Final judgment as to Scoville (Jan. 5, 2021)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.