Peruvian justice ordered the arrest of former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in the Odebrecht case

The Peruvian judicial branch on Wednesday ordered the arrest of 10-month-old former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, as part of an ongoing investigation into the alleged money laundering crime in the Odebrecht corruption scandal.

"The third court of preparatory investigation ordered the arrest the 10-day preliminaries against former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, "says a statement from the judiciary.

In June of last year, prosecutor José Domingo Pérez opened a preliminary investigation for money laundering against former Peruvian presidents Kuczynski, Alan García and Alejandro Toledo, following the alleged contributions of the Brazilian company Odebrecht, informed this Sunday the public ministry.

The investigations were initiated by the statement of the former director of the Brazilian construction company in Peru, Jorge Barata, received by Peruvian prosecutors in Brazil, where reference is made to the campaign contributions that the company would have made to their respective political organizations.

Keiko Fujimori, former presidential candidate defeated by Kuczynski in 2016, was arrested for the same reason in October 2018. Opposition party leader Popular Force was arrested after she went to court to be questioned by the alleged money laundering investigation with her husband, the US. Mark Vito.

During the interrogation of Barata, which was held in February 2018, the former director stated that his company contributed to the election campaigns of Kuczynski and Toledo in 2011 and Garcia in 2006.

He also mentioned a contribution to the 2011 Fuerza Popular campaign, Keiko Fujimori, who faced this year's elections with Ollanta Humala, who was the winner for the period 2011-2016.

Exactly, Humala is also under preliminary investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor for a contribution of three million dollars that would have been delivered by Odebrecht to his campaign.

In the case of Kuczynski, Barata said that the company had given him $ 300,000 by Susana de la Puente, recognized banker and close to the former president during his election campaign.

Kuczynski resigned from the Peruvian presidency last March for his ties with Odebrecht, after leaving the government of Toledo in which he was prime minister and owner of the economy.

For Alan García's campaign in 2006, the former leader of Odebrecht stressed have delivered $ 200,000 Former minister Luis Alva Castro, who served as an emissary, according to his statement published by the Peruvian media.

In the case of Toledo, Barata indicated that the contribution was $ 700,000 and for Keiko Fujimori, $ 1.2 million would have been awarded to former minister Jaime Yoshiyama and businessman Augusto Bedoya.

Toledo has already been the subject of an investigation for an alleged bribe of $ 20 million from Odebrecht to deliver the construction of two sections of the South Interoceanic Highway and the Peruvian Justice requested his extradition to the United States, where he resides.

The interrogation of Barata took place in Portuguese, at the request of Fujimori's defense, and the official translation into Spanish took at least two months and could finally be available for prosecutor Pérez last May.