Lima, Peru – Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo was sentenced to his second sentence on Wednesday in a case involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Toledo was sentenced to 13 years and four months for money laundering, Judge Josepha Izaga said. In October 2024, he was sentenced for 20 years and six months for bribery and corruption in the case.
Authorities accused the former president of accepting $35 million in bribes from Odbrecht in exchange for allowing highways to be built in South American countries.
Toledo ruled Peru from 2001 to 2006 and is the latest former Peff leader convicted of corruption related to Odebrecht. A few months ago, former President Oranta Humara was sentenced to 15 years in prison for washing the company's funds to fund the 2006 and 2011 campaigns.
Odebrecht built some of Latin America's most important infrastructure projects and confirmed to US authorities in 2016 that he purchased government contracts across the region with generous bribes. A US Department of Justice investigation has spun probes in several countries, including Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador.
In Peru, authorities accused Toledo and three other former presidents of receiving payments from construction giants. They alleged that Toledo received $35 million from Oudbrecht in exchange for a contract to build a 650-kilometer (403-mile) highway linking Brazil with South Peru. That portion of the highway was initially estimated at $507 million, but Peru will be paying $1.25 billion.
Toledo, 78, denied the charges.
He was first arrested in 2019 at his California home. He has been living in 2016 as a visiting scholar since returning to his alma mater Stanford University. He was initially detained in solitary confinement at a county jail east of San Francisco, but was released in 2020 for house arrest due to the Covid-19 pandemic and his worsening mental health.
He was handed over to Peru in 2023, and the appeals court denied his extradition challenge and surrendered to the authorities.
The statements are provided at the same time.
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