There was an old scam done by like a old head of the treasury of Brittany. I forgot the exact details but a guy named Walpol did a ponzi scheme for a big trade ship expiation. The scam got big enough the British government bought him out so the economy didn't crash. Like, it got way bigger than the a shipping run could ever be and people were just trading futures in a giant bubble to the point where it was a large fraction of the entire GDP. From what I recall everyone kinda found out about it but because he was upper class they all laughed it off. I just remember that after he got away with it someone interviewed him and he said he was retiring but he wasn't ever going to read a history book again. He said that having made history and seeing what is written about it he realized the histories are all bullshit. Which I feel like is kinda based for a man in like the eighteenth century or whenever