Met officers' 'plot to hack Foreign Minister's phone' sparks inquiry by Yard following Mail on Sunday investigation.

Scotland Yard has launched an investigation after The Mail on Sunday last week revealed detectives have been accused by a whistleblower of plotting with private investigators to hack a Government Minister’s emails and mobile phone.

The internal probe began last week following the revelation that the informant told the Yard almost a year ago of the alleged plan to intercept the private communications of Lord Malloch-Brown when he was a Foreign Office Minister.

The private investigators accused of involvement strenuously deny it.

Lord Malloch-Brown knew nothing of the allegations until he was contacted by this newspaper.

The Metropolitan Police defended its decision not to alert him or the other potential victims – then Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick and Nemat Shafik, former permanent secretary of the Department of International Development (DFID) – claiming there was no evidence ‘at this time’.

But last week anti-corruption detectives met Lord Malloch-Brown to brief him on the new inquiry. A source close to Lord Malloch-Brown said he felt the Met was treating the claims ‘very seriously’ and would shortly take a witness statement from him.

The Met may also be examining if Ms Dick and Ms Shafik were targeted. Last night, Scotland Yard refused to be drawn on this. A spokesman for Ms Shafik did not return calls.

It is claimed the detectives involved in the alleged plot were part of an elite Met unit, SCD6. Funded by DFID, the unit investigated foreign politicians who launder stolen assets through Britain.

In 2009, there were fears DFID was about to withdraw its financial backing due to concerns about the unit’s performance.

The whistleblower claimed RISC Management, a London-based private detective agency, and SCD6 officers plotted to intercept the ‘communications’ of individuals who might have knowledge of the plans. It is not clear whether any hacking was carried out.

The claims were first raised in a letter sent anonymously by the whistleblower to then Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson last July.

It said RISC, along with ‘serving officers attempted to intercept email and phone communications of Cressida Dick’. It added that ‘other communications interceptions appear to include’ Lord Malloch-Brown and Ms Shafik.

Lord Malloch-Brown was ‘briefed’ about the progress of SCD6 investigations, according to a dossier the whistleblower, who claims to be a RISC insider, sent to the Met and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) last July and August.

The IPCC is already supervising a Met inquiry into allegations from the whistleblower that RISC paid bribes to SCD6 officers for information on the prosecution of their clients.

A serving officer and three ex-officers turned private detectives were arrested in May over the claims.

It was also alleged in the dossier that RISC was behind payments of more than £60,000 to Inland Revenue officials for ‘intelligence’ to help clients. RISC denies the claim.

The serving officer arrested in May was questioned about claims he was given cash for information about SCD6’s investigation into James Ibori, a former Nigerian politician jailed in April for fraud and money laundering.

The arrest came the day after a lawyer, Mike Schwarz, told the Home Affairs Select Committee of possible payments by RISC to ‘presumably police’ sources.

In a memo to the committee, RISC completely denied all the allegations and claimed the whistleblower was Bhadresh Gohil, the former solicitor of Ibori jailed for money laundering.

A RISC spokesman said: ‘RISC has no knowledge of the allegations. We categorically deny that RISC has ever been retained by SCD6 or any other unit of the Met to carry out any work, let alone these unlawful activities.

‘The allegations are ludicrous. RISC has never been engaged to intercept communications of the named individuals or anyone else.

‘The origin of these allegations appear to be a website hosted in Africa and the anonymous documents presented to the police in August 2011, which also seem to be the sources for previous allegations against RISC by Mr Ibori’s disgraced former solicitor Bhadresh Gohil and his current lawyer, Mike Schwarz.

‘We have invited Mr Schwarz to repeat his allegations without the benefit of Parliamentary Privilege, but he has declined to do so.’