NEW YORK — Relatives of both Bernard Madoff and his wife are among those being targeted in 40 lawsuits by the trustee endeavoring to recover money for victims fleeced by the disgraced financier.

Twenty-two of the lawsuits were filed against relatives of Madoff and his wife, trustee Irving H. Picard said in a news release. Eighteen lawsuits were filed against former employees of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, he said.

Picard said his firm is seeking about $69 million in funds deposited by the company’s customers and stolen in the 72-year-old’s vast Ponzi scheme.

Picard said the lawsuits were filed as part of an effort to recover funds from relatives and employees “who were closest to the center of the fraud and who were, in many cases, among those who benefited most from the Ponzi scheme.”

Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison in North Carolina after confessing to the nearly two-decade scheme that ensnared thousands of victims, including charities, celebrities and institutional investors.

An estimated $20 billion was lost, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history.