PUTRAJAYA: Graft investigators have initiated a fresh probe against a top Umno leader, focusing on alleged money laundering.

       Confirming this, sources with knowledge of the case said investigators are looking into claims of funds being transferred into bank accounts linked to him.

       “Yes, we are investigating claims of financial transactions involving the individual.

       “Not much can be said about the case for now as investigators have just started their probe,” a source told The Star.

       The same source said the investigations came following a report lodged by an Umno branch, which called for a new investigation into the case involving the leader after the matter was raised by a news portal recently.

       The report, lodged on April 6, claimed that the Umno leader had received money from logging projects and the lease of land from around 2008 to 2010.

       A report was lodged against the leader several years ago, but the outcome has not been made known.

       Meanwhile, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said an investigation involving former Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd group CEO Datuk Rohana Rozhan is still ongoing.

       MACC anti-money-laundering division director Mohamad Zamri Zainul Abidin said the commission is still looking at the supposed asset worth about US$10mil (RM42.3mil).

       “We are still investigating. The MACC is asking the public not to speculate on the case,” he said in a statement.

       The clarification came following a report that Rohana had agreed in principle to return the US$10mil she received from her former lover, ex-Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner. The report quoted a source in MACC as saying that it was working to recover the money.

       Leissner, a former chief of Goldman Sachs’ South-East Asia operations, pleaded guilty in 2018 to a conspiracy to launder money related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd and became the US prosecution’s star witness against former colleague Roger Ng in the trial.

       Leissner, during Ng’s trial on Feb 22, told a US federal court that he had given the former Astro CEO, with whom he had had an affair for a decade, a US$10mil home in London.

       Following that, the MACC began investigating Rohana, who later issued a statement pledging her cooperation in their probe.