Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo. Photo: Klebher Vasquez / AFP
A court in Lima has sentenced 78-year-old former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to 20 years and six months in prison for corruption and money laundering in the scandal involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. This was reported by AFP and The Guardian.
“This court approves the prosecutor’s request for 20 years and 6 months in prison for Alejandro Toledo Manrique,” the court said during the hearing in the presence of the former president.
Prosecutors allege that Toledo, who served as president from 2001 to 2006, received a $35 million bribe from Odebrecht in exchange for a contract to build a road connecting Peru’s southern coast to the Amazon in western Brazil.
Toledo proclaims his innocence, denying any involvement in the corruption scheme exposed by Odebrecht in 2016. His lawyer, Roberto Su, has announced that he plans to appeal the court’s decision.
First serious verdict in the Lava Jato corruption scandal
This was the first major conviction in Peru related to the large-scale Lava Jato corruption operation that spanned Latin America. The investigation revealed systemic corruption aimed at winning government contracts.
Toledo was arrested in the United States in 2019, where he was held under house arrest until his extradition in April 2023. Upon his return to Peru, he was placed in Barbadillo prison.
Toledo is the first of four former Peruvian presidents to be convicted in the Odebrecht scandal. The other three – Ollanta Humala, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Alan Garcia – were also investigated, but Garcia committed suicide in 2019 before his arrest.
Odebrecht was a central company in the Lava Jato investigation, which led to the imprisonment of dozens of political leaders and company executives across Latin America. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the company distributed about $788 million in bribes in 12 countries in Latin America and Africa over more than a decade.
