LONDON - Two British tabloid journalists were arrested on Wednesday in a probe into illegal payments to public officials, the first confirmed cases of such alleged corruption at titles unconnected to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp .
Media group Trinity Mirror said it was cooperating with police after officers detained Justin Penrose from its Sunday Mirror newspaper, while Sky News named the other journalist as Tom Savage from the Daily Star Sunday.
The two were arrested at their homes in southern England as part of an inquiry into inappropriate payments to police which were uncovered by a wider probe into phone-hacking that forced Murdoch to close his News of the World tabloid last year.
No one at the Northern & Shell group which owns the Daily Star was immediately available to comment.