Maxwell Feared Internal Coup, Paper Reports : Publishing: Executives at the newspaper group had questioned his financial dealings. Wiretaps are found in some of their offices.

Executives in the late Robert Maxwell’s publishing empire had learned of his financial manipulations before his fatal cruise, and the magnate feared a boardroom coup, a newspaper reported today.

The account in the Sunday Telegraph followed other newspaper reports that the offices of some of the same executives at the London Daily Mirror had been bugged.

Lawrence Guest, the Mirror Group Newspapers’ financial director, had repeatedly challenged Maxwell about $84.5 million that allegedly had been moved from Mirror Group into Maxwell’s private empire, the Sunday Telegraph said, without attribution.

Guest ordered an internal investigation into the alleged transfers, and the publishing magnate feared his executives would try to oust him, the Telegraph said.

Guest was supported by fellow directors Ernest Burrington, now Mirror Group chairman, and Victor Horwood, it said.

“Guest was determined to slug it out,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified senior banking source as saying. “He saw it as his duty. He said he would see it through even if he ended up in a one-bedroom flat.”

On Saturday, the Financial Times, Britain’s leading business daily, reported that police are investigating allegations that Maxwell bugged the offices of senior officials and a boardroom in the Mirror building.

Burrington told officers of the Serious Fraud Office that a wiretap had been found in Guest’s telephone, a company statement said.

“The wiretap, which was still active, led to a tape recorder in an office in a nearby building which was part of the Maxwell Group,” the statement said.

Listening devices were also believed to have been installed in the offices of other senior directors and a boardroom at Mirror Group headquarters.

The Financial Times said that the discovery of the devices suggests Maxwell was able to eavesdrop on the conversations of senior directors.

Maxwell’s body was found floating in the sea on Nov. 5 near the Canary Islands, off Morocco, after he was reported missing from his yacht.

The Serious Fraud Office, a government prosecution agency, is investigating the pension fund allegations. Mirror Group has said $627 million of its pension fund assets were transferred to private Maxwell interests and it is trying to recover them.

On Thursday, court-appointed administrators drew up plans to sell pieces of the empire to pay off Maxwell’s legacy of more than $4 billion in debts.