Media reports say British police have arrested Rebekah Brooks, a former key executive of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire.

British police confirmed Sunday that they have arrested a 43-year-old woman in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the now defunct tabloid, News of the World. However, police did not release a name.

Brooks is a former News of the World editor and resigned Friday as head of Murdoch's British newspapers.

Murdoch shut down News of the World last week over allegations that journalists there illegally accessed the cell phone voicemails of hundreds of celebrities, politicians, rival journalists and even murder victims, and also bribed police for information.

British police have already arrested nine other people in connection to the scandal.

Brook's reported arrest Sunday came hours after Murdoch published his second apology in British newspapers.

In the ads, the 80-year-old Murdoch apologized for the “serious wrongdoing” and says he is “deeply sorry for the hurt” caused by his journalists.

The firestorm over the scandal has also forced Murdoch to abandon efforts to push through a multi-billion-dollar bid for British Sky Broadcasting, a satellite television company.

In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun a probe into whether employees of Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corporation tried to hack into the phones of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and their families, or tried to bribe police for information.

Murdoch's company has several lucrative news and entertainment outlets in the United States, including the country's top business newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, and a major television news outlet, Fox News Channel.