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Since launching the operation in March, police have arrested around 60 people, including the then-current mayor of Marbella, her deputy, and more than a dozen former town councillors from various political parties.
Spanish police arrested nine more people in connection with a $3 billion property corruption case on the Costa del Sol on Tuesday, including the ex-wife of a former mayor who is already in jail, court sources said.
Maite Zaldivar had said previously that rubbish bags stuffed with money arrived at her house when she was married to Julian Munoz during his time as mayor of the seaside resort.
Since launching "Operation Malaya" in March, police have arrested around 60 people, including the then-current mayor of Marbella, Marisol Yague, her deputy, and more than a dozen former town councillors from various political parties.
The investigation centres around whether politicians handed out contracts to construction firms in exchange for kickbacks.
Since those first arrests, the number of town hall corruption scandals across Spain has ballooned, forcing the governing Socialists to promise a change to planning laws.
Confiscated property and goods
Spanish developers are scrambling to find land, particularly on the coast, after a decade of unprecedented construction.
In the last 10 years Spain has built the equivalent of a quarter of all the urban area that existed up to that point, the government said last week. Last year Spain built more houses than Britain, France and Germany combined.
During Tuesday's operation, police also arrested Zaldivar's brother, a court official, a Marbella bank manager and five bank employees, the court sources added.
Police confiscated property and goods to the value of 2.4 billion Euro ($3.08 billion) during the first part of the investigation, including thoroughbred horses, luxury villas and hundreds of works of art.
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