Toledo will serve his sentence in a prison built specifically for former Peruvian presidents, outside the capital Lima.
Toledo, who has denied the crime, held power from 2001-2006 and is one of four Peruvian presidents who, according to an investigation in the USA, were bribed by Odebrecht. He was extradited from the USA in 2022.
Odebrecht is behind several of Latin and South America's most important infrastructure projects, but has also been surrounded by allegations of bribing to secure contracts. Eight years ago, in 2016, Odebrecht admitted to American authorities that the company had arranged contracts for large projects by bribing people in leading positions in countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru.
Toledo received 35 million dollars for Odebrecht to build a highway between Peru and Brazil, a project that ultimately cost over 1.2 billion dollars, double the planned amount.
The prosecutor in the case, José Domingo Pérez, describes the verdict against Toledo as historic. It shows that crime and corruption cannot go unpunished, according to him.
