Fraud is rampant before major economic crashes. Same thing happened in the 1920s. Charles Ponzi, the Florida real estate schemes, Goldman Sachs leveraged investment trusts. There was even what might be the first tech bubble pump and dump with RCA (a radio company). A bunch of investors bought up shares and then went to work hyping it to the public so they would buy in. The investors then dumped it and left everyone else holding the bag. Sound familiar?