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It is well known by now that Bernard L. Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme victimized thousands of his fellow American Jews.

But now an investigation from GlobalPost Passport reports that the Great Recession's other major Ponzi scheme -- orchestrated by the Stanford Financial Group -- also hammered Jews, this time in Mexico City's highly insular Jewish community of about 40,000 people. The investigation has found that Jewish schools and charities are struggling to stay open. Retirees have lost everything. Widows once comfortable are broke. Huge capital losses are being felt in every corner of Mexico City's tight-knit Jewish community. And a similar story appears to be emerging from the smaller Jewish community in Venezuela, although to a lesser degree.

These communities are rife with individual stories of loss and heartbreak because of Stanford.

In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Stanford with operating a "massive" fraud. All told, regulators believe Stanford attracted an estimated $8 billion from about 30,000 victims in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., for purportedly-safe investments like certificate of deposit (CD), albeit with a high return. About $6 billion is believed to be missing.

Many more non-Jews than Jews lost money in the Stanford theft. But the scam hammered Mexico's Jewish community disproportionately. Attorneys representing victims estimate that nearly half of the billion dollars lost in Mexico originated in the country's 40,000-strong Jewish community. Those numbers pack an outsized wallop for such a small, insular community.

Taken together, the Madoff and Stanford frauds beg the question, why have Jews been so prominently vulnerable?

A few years ago, while Madoff and Stanford were still raking in their victims' nest eggs, the SEC released a fact sheet entitled "Affinity Fraud: How To Avoid Investment Scams That Target Groups" (http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/affinity.htm). It warned that Ponzi and pyramid scheme fraudsters had been exploiting the ethnic, religious, and other bonds they shared to gain the confidence of their victims. Koreans had ripped off fellow Koreans. African-American hucksters hit black churches. And elderly con artists have ripped off fellow retirees.

One reason the Stanford fraud wasn't -- until now -- pegged as an affinity scam is that Stanford himself isn't Jewish. On the contrary, the former Waco Texas health club owner turned financier, who was knighted in Antigua, was a devout Christian (outwardly, at least). A graduate of a Baptist university, he was reportedly active in his church and led prayers at business meetings.

But as GlobalPost Passport has found, Stanford was able to take advantage of Jewish ethnic affinity in Mexico City by hiring native-born Mexican Jews with deep ties in the community to run his local sales operations.

Doing so was akin to a scientist placing a single strain of bacteria in a gel-filled petri dish. The infection spread quickly.

Mexican Jews, like Jewish minority communities scattered throughout the global Diaspora, tend to share bonds of trust born from enduring organized persecution and genocide in adopted lands. Over the centuries in different nations, Jewish people have become almost genetically inculcated with the idea that help will only come from other Jews. A trust, then, born of shared culture, identity, religion, and external threat over time made these tight-knit communities easy prey once they were infiltrated.

In explaining why he trusted Stanford's sales force with his synagogue's assets, a Venezuelan rabbi told GlobalPost Passport, "They were Venezuelan Jews. They worked for a bank. He didn't have to convince me; I called him. This was made easier, so to speak, by the fact that he was Jewish."

Taken in that context, it's easy then to see how Stanford, like Madoff, spread in these communities.

There is a warning in their story, implicit to any Jew or non-Jew living in America or abroad who is considering solicitations by one of their own kind to invest life savings. Stanford and Madoff are hardly coincidental. On the contrary, they pose a teachable moment.

The report about how Stanford affected Jews is available to members of GlobalPost Passport, the premium content section of the international news site GlobalPost. To sign up visit: www.globalpost.com/passport. Texas-based Todd Bensman is a regular GlobalPost contributor who writes frequently about Mexico's drug war. The following is an excerpt from Bensman's investigative report.

Like Madoff, Stanford Ponzi hits Jews hard

A GlobalPost Passport investigation reveals that the $8 billion Stanford Ponzi scheme -- the world's second largest -- decimated the savings of Jews in Mexico City and Caracas. Were Jews explicitly targeted, or were they easy prey?

By Todd Bensman
GlobalPost Passport

Over the past 15 years, Kadima, a Jewish charity in Mexico City, has helped developmentally disabled Jews live to their fullest potential. The charity, which has 250 beneficiaries, offers day care for adults with Downs Syndrome, and provides job training and placement for the mentally handicapped.

To ensure that the aid would be there despite the frequent turmoil in Mexico's economy, for years the charity has vigorously raised funds, and has scrimped and saved wherever possible. "What we really wanted to do with the money is to make sure the institution can go for another 10 years," said Sofie Freiman, head of Kadima's fundraising efforts. "It was a great deal of money for an institution that relies on donations by other people. It took us 13 years to save it."

By 2009, Kadima had amassed enough money that its directors planned to expand the clinic and start up new programs.

Now, most of that money is gone. The charity had invested its nest egg with R. Allen Stanford's Houston-based Stanford Financial Group, which, according to U.S. prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission, was an $8 billion Ponzi scheme. The alleged Stanford fraud is the world's second biggest Ponzi scheme, after the $65 billion Bernard L. Madoff case.

It has been widely reported that Madoff wiped out the fortunes of many wealthy Jewish families and charities. A GlobalPost Passport investigation reveals that, as a victim of Stanford, Kadima was far from alone among the Jewish communities of Latin America.

Stanford reportedly prayed with his sales force and also used Christian connections to raise money. Nonetheless, the Jewish community is asking, did he deliberately target Jews? Or were they merely easy prey? The entire report is available to members of GlobalPost Passport, the premium content section of the international news site GlobalPost. To sign up visit: www.globalpost.com/passport