That is not really true, at least from the "global history" point of view.

Sovereigns would debase coins routinely. Scammers would sell snake oil medicine in every village, then disappear. The Church would sell absolutions. All sorts of fake goods flooded the markets, from wine to guano. Bubbles like the South Sea Bubble devastated entire economies. Arguably the Ancient Régime in France was fatally weakened by too many such scandals on its watch.

Quite a lot of the current regulatory framework is a reaction to the ubiquity of scams in history.