A journalist from the Sun newspaper and two serving police officers have been arrested as part of Operation Elveden, an investigation into inappropriate payments to police and public officials in Britain.
London’s Metropolitan Police said the three individuals were detained on Thursday over alleged corrupt payments as part of the probe, which is running along the phone-hacking inquiry.
According to Scotland Yard, the arrests were made on suspicion of offences between 2004 and 2011, based on information provided by the management of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire News Corporation and standards committee.
A crime correspondent for the Sun was arrested in Hertfordshire, North of London, over allegations of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office.
A 47-year-old man from the Metropolitan police’s specialist operations command was arrested at his Hertfordshire home on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and corruption.
Moreover, a police officer serving in the force’s specialist crime and operations command was detained in Surrey, south of the British capital, on suspicion of the similar offences.
56 people have been arrested by Operation Elveden detectives in total, from which 22 were from the Sun.
MOS/SSM/HE