US investigators are probing three dozen senior navy officers to determine if they were connected with a scandal that involved top US brass exchanging military secrets for cash, lavish meals and prostitutes.

Investigators from the Department of Justice and the Navy Criminal Investigative Service are probing the officers — who are either admirals or captains in line for promotion to admiral — as part of a multiyear investigation into a Malaysian contractor known as “Fat Leonard” who used his connections with the US Navy to bilk the service out of millions of dollars.

The Washington Post on Friday published an investigation into the scandal, which revealed how the contractor, a wealthy Malaysian whose real name is Leonard Glenn Francis and who was caught in a sting in California in 2013, had cultivated senior officers in the seventh fleet which operates in the Pacific.