It is likely that Bernard Madoff’s investment fund did not execute even a single trade (or at least executed only a few trades), industry officials told Reuters Friday.

If this is true, the statements sent to investors were complete fabrications.  But then, so were many other themes in the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

“Our exams showed no evidence of trading on behalf of the investment advisor, no evidence of any customer statements being generated by the broker-dealer,” Herb Perone, spokesman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, told Reuters.

Madoff could have placed trades through other brokerage firms, but industry experts told Reuters that this was not a likely scenario.

There’s further proof that no trades were executed: Madoff sent a statement to investors showing transactions in Fidelity Investments’ Spartan Fund, according to Reuters.   But Fidelity says it didn’t happen.

“We are not aware of any investments by Madoff in our funds on behalf of his clients,” Fidelity spokeswoman Anne Crowley said in an e-mail to Reuters.  “Consequently, his firm did not work with our intermediary businesses through which firms invest their clients’ money in Fidelity funds.”

Plus, investigators have found that there were differences between the actual prices that stocks traded on Wall Street and the prices Madoff’s firm recorded on investor statements, according to Reuters.

And the $50 billion lie continues…