ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s integrity commission on Monday announced that arrest warrants were issued for the former municipality director of Nasiriyah city alongside several employees after a forgery network was uncovered in the institution.

The commission announced in a statement the discovery of “a network involved in manipulation and forgery related to the allocation and ownership of several properties.”

“The procedures for allocating and transferring ownership of the properties were marred by forgery, manipulation, and violations of regulations and instructions,” the body added.

Nasriyah is the capital city of the southeastern Dhi Qar province.

Weeks earlier in mid-August, the commission announced that an official from the Nasiriyah municipality was sentenced to six years in prison for “committing bribery and manipulating land ownership, allocation, and sale transactions.”

Though rich in natural resources such as oil, Nasiriyah is one of Iraq’s poorest cities, with a significant fraction of its population living below the poverty threshold.

The commission noted on Monday that its personnel “had previously seized 30 ownership transactions as crucial evidence in the case,” with further investigations leading to “the seizure of 12 additional original ownership transactions.”

A lien has been placed on 104 prime properties valued at over 10 billion Iraqi dinars combined, as part of the investigations, the commission added.

The warrants come amid a corruption purge undertaken by Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi that started with a sweeping raid of Baghdad’s Green Zone in late June and saw the arrest of several high-ranking Iraqi officials.

The initial raid saw the arrest of at least 21 people. By late July, Baghdad had seized over $125 million and 380 kilograms of gold and jewelry in a corruption case involving Adnan al-Jumaili, the detained oil ministry undersecretary for refining affairs.

The campaign has so far kept its pace, with the integrity commission reporting on Sunday that 191 arrest warrants were issued in August, including 27 for high-ranking officials.