It appears that those are administrative, rather than criminal, inquiries.

Deputy Inspector Kim Y. Royster, a spokeswoman for the Police Department, would not address the scope of the leak inquiry but said, “There were only two sources that were definitively identified in I.A.B. as leaking information.”

“Once this was discovered,” she added, “the investigation was contained by I.A.B.” She said the operation was moved from the Bronx Internal Affairs office and the investigators were vetted and limited to a small group.

Inspector Royster would not say whether the lieutenant was one of the two people from Internal Affairs who had been identified as leaking information. And while she said that the Internal Affairs Bureau had determined that none of its other current members had leaked information, she could not say whether others who had left their assignments there or who served elsewhere were under investigation for leaking information about the case.

The leaks, she said, had no impact on the case.

But several of the people with knowledge of the investigation said that one leak, in February 2010, when investigators were eavesdropping on several police officers, union delegates, resulted in some discussions of the ticket-fixing investigation among a group of Bronx delegates at a union meeting. They were told, one source said, to conduct ticket-fixing business only face to face. After that, for several months, few telephone conversations about ticket-fixing were intercepted, although they eventually picked up again, the sources said.

In other instances, some police union officials would speculate about whether their phones were tapped and then blithely proceed to have incriminating conversations, the sources said.

Several people with knowledge of the case said the profusion of leaks raised questions about the department’s policy of drafting reluctant investigators and supervisors to serve in Internal Affairs, a unit that is still reviled in the department because of its focus on fellow officers. The policy was instituted nearly two decades ago, to ensure that Internal Affairs had a pool of capable investigators and managers, but it still rankles many, in particular those who have been drafted to serve there.

But Inspector Royster said the drafting of officers into Internal Affairs played no role in the leaks. She said it was not true that Internal Affairs’ selection process “may have exacerbated the leaks.”