Pair held by detectives investigating corrupt payments to police and public officals

Detectives investigating claims of corrupt payments to police and public officials have arrested a man and a woman in north west London.

Officers from Operation Elveden, the Met’s specialist team probing allegations of inappropriate payments by News Corporation employees, arrested the pair at the same address this morning.

The 50-year-old man, who works for HM Revenue and Customs, is being held on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and suspicion of corruption.

The 43-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office and suspicion of money laundering.

The arrests are the result of information provided to police by News Corporation’s management standards committee (MSC) which was set up following the phone-hacking scandal on the News of the World which resulted in the Sunday newspaper being closed last year.

Operation Elveden is being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and is being run in conjunction with Operation Weeting, which is the Met’s investigation into phone-hacking.

A police spokesman refused to specify where in north west London the pair were arrested.

This latest development brings the number of people arrested to 29.