As the SEC proceeds with an inquiry into Zion Oil and Gas, a Dallas-based firm that looks to the Bible for clues about where to drill for oil in Israel, Jackson Walker attorney and former SEC enforcement attorney Jason C. Rodgers provided insight to the Austin American-Statesman about SEC investigations.

According to the Statesman, Zion was reported by the SEC by an individual who suspected it of affinity fraud, which calls on a class of investors with similar ethnic, religious, or other backgrounds.

Rodgers said that, generally speaking, in a case involving affinity fraud, “there’s a heightened betrayal of trust than in a typical scam, because the perpetrators are appealing to individuals as members of a group and holding themselves out as like-minded, when in reality they’re targeting a group of people in a single scam.”

For more on the company and SEC inquiry, read the Austin American-Statesman‘s “Former Texas regulator is out as CEO at biblically oriented oil firm.”