The arrests came as a separate judicial investigation into the behavior of journalists at Mr. Murdoch’s British newspapers said that he and his son James would testify in separate appearances before the panel next week.
The police did not identify the suspects but described them in a statement as a 36-year-old man living in Kent, arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt a public official; a 42-year-old former member of the armed forces in Lancashire, arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office; and a 38-year-old woman living at the same address in Lancashire, suspected of aiding in that misconduct. The police said they were searching both residences.
Mr. Murdoch’s company, the News Corporation, said one of its journalists at The Sun, a tabloid, had been among those arrested on Thursday, though no name was given, news agencies reported. The British news media identified the journalist as Duncan Larcombe, 36, the paper’s royal editor.
Nine others at the newspaper were arrested this year, dragging The Sun, the country’s best-selling daily, onto the main stage from the fringes of the news-gathering scandal that led to the closing last year of its sister tabloid, The News of the World.
Information provided by a special team created by the News Corporation to investigate accusations of wrongdoing led to the arrests on Thursday, the police said. The previous arrests at the paper were also aided by information given to the police by the company’s team, known as the Management and Standards Committee.
So far, the police said, 26 people have been arrested and questioned in the investigation into corruption and bribery. Twenty others have been arrested in separate inquiries into phone and computer hacking by journalists at the News Corporation’s British news operation, News International.
One of those inquiries, headed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, said it would hear evidence from Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday and possibly on Thursday, as well. His son James was set to testify on Tuesday.
Both men testified during a Parliamentary hearing last July on phone hacking at News International. The proceedings, which were televised and closely followed on the Internet, were briefly interrupted when a protester threw a plate of shaving cream into Rupert Murdoch’s face.
Though none of the people arrested in connection with the scandal have been formally charged, British prosecutors said that the cases had moved a step closer to possible criminal prosecutions, with Scotland Yard sending four files on 11 unidentified people, including four journalists and a police officer, to the Crown Prosecution Service on Wednesday. Under Britain’s judicial system, criminal charges are drawn up by the prosecutors on the basis of evidence gathered by the police.
The list of those arrested but yet to be charged includes several well-known figures in British journalism, including Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of News International, and Andy Coulson, formerly an editor at The News of the World and later the communications chief for Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr. Coulson resigned that post last year, citing the distraction caused by the scandal at his former paper.