Daily Lessons from Life 11 February 2012 - 8 arrested in UK tabloid bribery probe

"8 arrested in UK tabloid bribery probe - AFP 11 February 2012

LONDON: British police on Saturday arrested five employees of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The Sun, a police officer, a member of the armed forces and a defence ministry employee in a bribery probe.

The arrests represented a dramatic widening of police investigations into Murdoch's British newspaper empire, following the phone hacking scandal which led to the closure of the News of the World in July.

"The remit of Operation Elveden has widened to include the investigation of evidence uncovered in relation to suspected corruption involving public officials who are not police officers," a Scotland Yard statement said.

Operation Elveden was set up last year in tandem with Operation Weeting, which is investigating the illegal hacking of mobile phone voicemails.

Police said five men aged 45, 47, 50, 52 and 68 were arrested in dawn raids at their homes in London and nearby areas on suspicion of corruption and of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office.

The arrests were made following information provided to police by the Management and Standards Committee set up by Murdoch's US-based News Corporation, Scotland Yard said."

How persistence and belief in the uncovering of the truth make a difference when conspiracies and well crafted deception, misconducts and corruption are investigated.

Lessons for me are:

1. these type of activities must have been going on for a while. Despite careful and strenuous efforts to 'confuse and disorient' the public and the investigators, somehow someone somewhere will spill the beans! Sometimes from within the group that perpetuated the crimes!;

2. jealousy, envy, distrust or simple uneven distribution of the loots are enough to turn some of the perpetrators against each other! Such is the nature of such operation;

3. with the net cast wider, with more people in sensitive sectors of UK society being implicated, it can show one and for all, or at least to a large extent, the deep rootedness of such behaviors nurtured by self-centered people and behaviours. Some quite obviously turned not one but two blind eyes, cupped their ears and stuffed their noses, blacken their hearts and sold their souls! Yet, despite all the elaborate cover up, covert operations and what not, the truth will always be found when the deeds or misdeeds caused great public pains and are unethical.

May the Sun be brought down as well. May Rupert Murdoch and his greedy news media company be sanctioned severely. And may the Murdoch empire collapse unceremonially. Alright, this is too vindictive and one DOES NOT want to be as evil as the Murdoch Empire. So, let it die of natural death as decided by the readers and subscribers and the public!

God saves the Queen! (from an anarchist!)