The Metropolitan police's much vaunted anti-corruption drive, which has been under way for six years, is now itself the subject of three inquiries because of allegations over the way it operates, an investigation by the Guardian has revealed.

The inquiries into the complaints investigation branch (CIB), two of them internal and one by an outside force, have been prompted by complaints that the anti-corruption squad, dubbed the Untouchables, used discredited methods to pursue serving and former officers.

They include entrapment operations; inducements to supergrasses; non-disclosure to the defence of vital documents in court cases; widespread breaches of laws regulating police evidence-gathering procedures; and double standards in the handling of complaints.

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Britain's most powerful crime family gave a series of cash donations to the Labour Party before the general election, The Observer can reveal.

Key members of the notorious Adams family made the claim in conversations secretly recorded during an undercover police investigation into the London criminal gang, which has made millions from drugs and is thought to be behind 25 gangland murders.

Tommy Adams, one of the gang's leaders, was recorded in June 1996 boasting he should be "all right" under New Labour because he had donated UKP2,000 in cash.

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