A secret audio recording reveals News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch criticizing the investigation into allegations of phone hacking by former journalists for his now-defunct News of the World paper, the BBC reports. The charges were investigated in the 2000s, with a new round of inquiries beginning in 2011.

In the recording, Murdoch may suggest that he was aware his employees were giving money to public officials in exchange for preferential treatment.

According to Exaro, the site that published the recording, Murdoch “indicated in the private meeting that he knew for decades that his newspaper journalists were bribing public officials.”

The Exaro recording and transcript of the executive’s comments are behind a paywall, and the BBC offers only a few short clips from the file. Among them, Murdoch is heard saying:

“But why are the police behaving in this way? It’s the biggest inquiry ever, over next to nothing.

“And now they’re arresting their own, who never even took money… they’re going to put all newspapers out of business.”

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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