Police arrest 20 in Costa del Sol corruption probe

MALAGA, Spain, June 17 (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested 20 people on the Costa del Sol, including a mayor and a tax official, as part of a corruption case in Estepona near Malaga, police and prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Spain's southern coast, a popular holiday and retirement destination for northern Europeans, has been a breeding ground for town hall corruption. In many cases, local government officials have taken bribes from holiday home developers to reclassify public land.

A spokeswoman for the anti-corruption prosecutor's office said the case in Estepona included charges of bribery, prevarication, peddling influence and money laundering.

Like Spain's most infamous corruption case, a $3 billion property scam run out of nearby Marbella town hall, allegations in Estepona centre around the reclassification of public land, newspaper El Mundo quoted sources as saying -- land that was sold at below the market rate.

The Socialist mayor of Estepona Antonio Barrientos, a tax councillor and the municipal architect were among those arrested.

The ruling Socialist party immediately stripped Barrientos of his job and said it had a zero tolerance policy on corruption.

"We have to respect everyone's constitutional rights but we must be inflexible and any shadow of a doubt has to be acted on immediately. In this case it has led us to throw out this mayor," Socialist party spokesman Jose Antonio Alonso said.

Hundreds of cases of corruption connected to the construction industry have come to light in the last three years, with several town mayors and officials arrested on charges of taking kickbacks from builders during the country's long construction boom.

So many councillors in Marbella faced corruption allegations the government dissolved the council and installed a caretaker committee. (Reporting by Teresa Larraz and Alfonso Olaso; Writing by Jane Barrett; Editing by Matthew Jones)