$12 billion sounds like a lot, but Madoff's ponzi scheme was $50 billion, and that's just one instance, not a whole market aggregate like the $12 billion. Also

$12 billion sounds like a lot, but Madoff's ponzi scheme was $50 billion, and that's just one instance, not a whole market aggregate like the $12 billion. Also, if you want to talk about fraud rate, you need a denominator. A big sounding number by itself is meaningless.