Peru President Could Be Biggest Figure Yet to Fall in Latin America Graft Scandal

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Date: December 19, 2017

It is the latest in a wave of corruption charges that has roiled the region, and appears to have signaled a turning point.

For years, many Latin Americans ruefully accepted corruption to be as inevitable as voting itself, as officials from the presidential palace to the mayor’s office enriched themselves from public coffers. “Roba, pero hace obras,” — “he robs, but he builds,” in Spanish — was a common refrain.

Now, politicians are on the run — in some cases literally. Alejandro Toledo, who served as Peru’s president in the early 2000s, remains at large after being indicted by prosecutors for having accepted $20 million in payments from Odebrecht. Another former Peruvian president, Ollanta Humala, and his wife, Nadine Heredia, are in jail awaiting trial. In Ecuador, a former vice-president was sentenced to six years in jail for accepting payments.

President Kuczynski’s case, however, highlights a dilemma haunting many of the investigations: How to oust politicians in governments where few judging them are considered any more clean — and in some cases far less so.

More:
http://salishnews.com/peru-president-could-be-biggest-figure-yet-to-fall-in-latin-america-graft-scandal/