Ex-Peru President Toledo Jailed 13 Years in Second Corruption Case

Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo has been sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison for corruption, less than a year after receiving a separate 20-year sentence in another graft case.

A court in Lima found that Toledo, who led Peru from 2001 to 2006, took illicit payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which he used to purchase properties and pay off mortgages in his name and those of relatives.

In October 2024, Toledo was sentenced to 20 years in prison for accepting $35 million in bribes linked to the awarding of a contract to build part of the Interoceanic Highway connecting Rio de Janeiro and Lima.

Both sentences will run concurrently, beginning from April 23, 2023, the date of his extradition from the United States. Toledo, now 79, was arrested in the U.S. in 2019 after Peru issued a warrant for his arrest in 2017. He surrendered to U.S. authorities in 2023 and was sent back to Peru to face trial.

The Odebrecht affair, regarded as Latin America’s largest corruption scandal, exposed how the company paid nearly $800 million in bribes across 12 countries to secure public works contracts. In Peru, the section of the Interoceanic Highway tied to Toledo’s case cost $2.1 billion — far above the original estimate of $850 million.