In February, Murdoch publicly stated:
"Every newspaper is conducting strict inspections on its own operations. Using private detectives to obtain illegal information is definitely not the trend of this industry, at least not in the UK."
After that, Andy Carlson, the editor-in-chief of the News of the World, resigned.
Barron knew that this was obviously their pawn to save the car. In the series of related lawsuits, they would definitely spend money to reach a settlement to avoid the occurrence of lawsuits.
But obviously, he could not allow such a thing to happen - after all, if it was really like this, I am afraid that it would be the same as in the previous life. This series of things would not be exposed again until a few years later, which was not in Barron's interest.
Just to cause trouble to Sky TV in the purchase of the Premier League broadcasting rights this year, Barron would also add fuel to the fire in this matter.
However, he was not going to stand in the open right away, although he had begun to instruct his intelligence department to collect relevant evidence of the media under News Corporation bribing some private detectives to eavesdrop and track public figures including the royal family a few years ago.
Soon, many media outlets, including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and some entertainment tabloids, began to report more "wiretapping" incidents in News Corporation's media. These reports not only pointed to the News of the World, but also involved other newspapers of News Corporation, and even similar incidents in their local newspapers in the United States.
The examples they listed, including the royal family, celebrities, political figures, murder victims, and even the families of the victims of the "7.7" bombing in London in 2005, have become the targets of wiretapping by those newspapers.
Some newspapers even pointed out that the families of the victims of the 9/11 incident in the United States had also been wiretapped by News Corporation's newspapers.
The appearance of these reports immediately detonated the "wiretapping" incident of News Corporation, causing an increasing impact.
After that, newspapers under the Independent Press also began to join the feast of "exposing crimes" - many of the materials in the previous reports, of course, came from Barron's instructions, and his men sent the solid evidence to the hands of relevant personnel in many newspapers.
The Independent announced on the front page that they had solid evidence that a private detective hired by a newspaper under News Corporation had wiretapped and modified the voicemail of the missing girl Millie in 2002, which was the reason why the police investigation was misled and Millie eventually died tragically.
As soon as this report came out, it directly aroused public anger, and many people even took to the streets to demand that the government thoroughly investigate the "wiretapping" incident of News Corporation and deal with their violation of citizens' privacy.
All newspapers and TV stations of News Corporation in Britain were affected, and many people gathered at the door of these newspapers and TV stations to protest.
Under such surging public opinion, Brown gave a speech, announcing that an independent investigation team would be formed to investigate the "wiretapping" incident of News Corporation, and all their personnel would be restricted from leaving the country before the investigation was completed.
At this time, Murdoch realized that their big trouble was coming...
"
Has His Royal Highness left?"
"Yes, he looks in a good mood... Ella."
Barron met His Royal Highness the Crown Prince in a villa in Westminster, and what they talked about was the "wiretapping" incident of News Corporation.
As early as three years ago, Barron talked to His Royal Highness about the excessive control of the media in the UK by News Corporation. The royal family was also very dissatisfied with the over-enthusiastic attitude of their tabloids towards royal news - especially after the police found that the reporter of the News of the World was involved in the wiretapping of the royal family's phone calls, they had no good impression of it.
Of course, at that time, Barron was very tactful and did not tell His Royal Highness about their enthusiasm for wiretapping in advance.
Obviously, after this "wiretapping" incident intensified, the Crown Prince also supported Barron, and he also hoped to use this to knock other media to prevent them from using excessive means to continue to pay attention to the life of the royal family. Barron did not say much about the content of their conversation, but pulled Miss Ella into his arms, kissed her on the lips, and said softly:
"Have you waited too long?"
"It's not bad, I don't have to go back to Kensington Palace today."
This villa was originally bought by Barron for a tryst with Gabriel, and he will stay here today.
Speaking of which, compared to Miss Ella who was a little nervous about their relationship at the beginning, she has now become accustomed to the feeling of "secret meeting" and is becoming more and more addicted to it.
The Duke of Kent's daughter, who is usually elegant and generous, can be said to be passionate when the two get along privately.
Speaking of which, although they live in Kensington Palace, because their family is no longer a direct member of the royal family, they still need to pay rent - of course, the rent they pay is more symbolic than the huge maintenance costs of Kensington Palace.
Many members of the royal family live in Kensington Palace, both collateral and direct. In the original time and space, William and Cather also lived there after their marriage.
From the fact that Ella's father, the Duke of Kent, also owns an art trade industry, it can be seen that sometimes their family still needs to rely on selling the huge jewelry and art inherited to "improve their lives". Of course, compared with ordinary people, their wealth is naturally far greater than theirs, but for wealthy people like Barron or the Duke of Westminster, it is far inferior.
After graduation, Ella started working in a company as a designer. Later, Barron opened a design firm for her. Her own income was already quite generous, but most of the time, she still lived in Kensington Palace with her parents and siblings, and only occasionally came to this villa to spend the night. The
next day, Barron went to Devonshire Financial Center.
At present, DS Group owns Athena Fund, a quantitative trading fund, and Hera Fund, a high-frequency trading fund in London.
Although it is known that after the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis this year, the stock markets in London and Europe will fall to a certain extent, but these two funds are not long-term holdings, but high-frequency transactions conducted by computers, and after following the correct trend prediction, their profits will not be greatly affected.
But Mars Fund is different. In addition to futures trading such as crude oil and foreign exchange, the stocks they hold will be held for a relatively long time. Therefore, the positions of Mars Fund will be adjusted later, and they will participate in the short selling of the stock market.
"According to your request, we have checked the positions and trading conditions of all traders. At present, it seems that the situation is not bad..."
"But there are still unexpected losses, right?"
Barron took the file handed over by Daisy and asked casually.
"Yes, but this time, the investigation also took a lot of extra energy."
The scale of trading funds involved in the DS Group is far from what it was at the beginning, and it is precisely at this time, especially with the upcoming subprime mortgage crisis, that Barron needs to conduct a detailed investigation of the trading conditions of the traders under the group.
After all, stories of certain traders causing huge losses to a large-scale investment bank or investment company due to negligence in private transactions and deliberate concealment have been happening all the time, and Barron certainly does not want DS Group to become one of the typical cases.
Especially at the moment when the subprime mortgage crisis is about to break out, if any trader privately invests a large amount of funds in debt products related to subprime mortgages, and then recklessly adds high leverage, then before they are ready to profit from the subprime mortgage crisis, they are likely to be affected first and suffer heavy losses.