Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo sentenced to 20 years for corruption linked to Odebrecht construction

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Celestino Toledo Manrique was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison after he was found guilty on charges of money-laundering and corruption. The verdict marks the first high profile Peruvian conviction related to Brazil’s continent wide Operation Car Wash investigation.

According to Peruvian prosecutors, Toledo, a former economist who headed the Possible Peru Party, took $35 million in bribes from a Brazilian construction company, Odebrecht, which was awarded a contract quid pro quo to construct a road in southern Peru. 

The former Peruvian president served a five-year term from 2001 and 2006. He became known throughout the international community after he led the opposition against former President Alberto Fujimori who was accused of human rights violations during his term from 1990 to 2000.

Toledo, 78, was arrested in 2019 in the State of California, where he had had quietly been working before he was extradited to Peru last year. 

The former Peruvian president faced an uphill battle in court because the charges against came in the wake of the Odebrecht admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials throughout Latin America and the United States in exchange for lucrative government contracts.

Toledo’s is just the latest judicial casualty of many who are continuing to face charges and a massive transnational investigation that has already brought down one Brazilian president and is now impacting leaders from Peru and Panama.

The investigation has captured the attention of audiences throughout Latin America and abroad because law enforcement agents and prosecutors have alleged the Odebrecht construction conglomerate managed a secret “bribery department” that paid off government officials for many years.

According to a 2017 report published by The Guardian, continued investigations have revealed “meticulous schemes of graft laid out by witnesses,” resulting "in plea deals and in leaked and seized documents [that] show how the company funneled $800 million of payouts to politicians and parties in Latin America alone.”

The report adds that “the workings of a secret at the Brazilian that suborned government officials around the world for years are being exposed by investigators.”

Inés Rojas, the judge presiding over Toledo’s case chastised the former president at sentencing, saying that his countrymen “trusted” him as someone who was “in charge of managing public finances” and responsible for “protecting and ensuring the correct” use of government funds.

An Associated Press report quoted Rojas saying that the former president “defrauded the state.”

Toledo has repeatedly denied prosecutors’ charges and has shown defiance at different stages of the judicial proceedings against him, even smiling and laughing when the judge was speaking.

To date, the Odebrecht has seen many judicial casualties including Alan García, another former president who committed suicide by gunshot when law enforcement agents tried to arrest him at his home in 2019.

Two other former Peruvian presidents, Ollanta Humala and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski are also the subjects of investigation in the case.