We all agree that counterfeiting is a serious problem, so of course there is a governmental agency that covers "Financial Crimes, covering missions such as prevention and investigation of counterfeiting of U.S. currency and U.S. treasury securities, and investigation of major fraud" (according to Wikipedia).

I think you got to the heart of the matter when you wrote "Scale matters". Murdering millions of people is a bigger deal than murdering one person. Theft of millions of dollars is worse than theft of one dollar. The problem I have is the distinction is made not based on scale but by the means of theft. I suppose the idea is that is is worse to steal one dollar each from a million people than a million dollars from one person, but I disagree with that conclusion.