It was a rough year for Ponzi schemes. In 2009, the recession unraveled nearly four times as many of the investment scams as fell apart in 2008, with “Ponzi’’ becoming a buzzword again, thanks to the collapse of Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion plot.

Tens of thousands of investors, some of them losing their life’s savings, watched more than $16.5 billion disappear like smoke in 2009, according to an Associated Press analysis of scams in all 50 states.