The US Department of Justice said it will share with Peru about $686,000 of illicit profits it would have made in the North American country, part of bribes paid by the Odebrecht construction company to former President Alejandro Celestino Toledo Manrique.
“This is an important example of the international cooperation needed to fight overseas corruption when illegal proceeds are brought into the United States,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement press release .
It adds that “the Ministry (of Justice) has a duty to do its part to recover and repatriate such proceeds of corruption where appropriate.”
A team of prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Division found that $1.2 million of the bribes Odebrecht paid Toledo were sent to that country. The money was used to buy a property in Maryland in 2007, in a scheme that has concealed that the funds came from Toledo and its relationship with Odebrecht.
At a later date the lands were sold and this resulted in a profit of $686,000 which the United States will share with Peru. The confiscation of funds held in a Bank of America account was approved by a court in the Eastern District of New York. The Havenell Trust has been identified as the beneficiary of the funds.
Prosecutors have determined that the bank account and trust were controlled by Toledo and are pursuing all funds associated with the account and trust. Former President Alejandro Toledo is facing criminal charges in Peru for receiving more than $30 million in bribes from Odebrecht through various accounts controlled by his friend, the late businessman Josef Maiman Rapaport.
Before his death, Maiman used effective collaboration and helped trace the illicit money to the accounts of offshore companies, including founding the Ecoteva Consulting Group in Costa Rica. Of these funds, $3.8 million was transferred to Peru to buy a house in the Las Casuarinas urbanization and an office in the Omega building, both in the Surco district. In addition, the payment of the mortgages for the former President’s house in the Camacho urbanization for $217,000 and Punta Sal for $277,000.
Alejandro Toledo is in the US awaiting extradition to Peru.