Justice of Peru begins trial for money laundering against Toledo awaiting his extradition

The prosecution requested a sentence of 16 years and eight months in prison for the former president and his wife.

Peruvian justice began an oral trial this Wednesday against former President Alejandro Toledo and his wife Eliane Karp, who are accused of having laundered millions of dollars from alleged bribes.

in the cause Karp’s mother, Eva Fernenbug, is also implicated; and his attorney David Abraham Eskenazi; in addition to Toledo’s former security adviser, Avraham Dan On, and his son Shai Dan On.

They are all part of the “Ecoteva case”, So called because it was the name of one of the companies that Toledo and Karp allegedly created in Costa Rica to launder money with the help of their accomplices.

The process began in the Ninth Criminal Liquidating Chamber of the Judiciary, located in the courts of Lima, and with the absence of the main defendants, since Toledo and Karp are in the US because the extradition request against them has not yet materialized. The prosecution has already requested a sentence of 16 years and eight months in prison against both.

Fernenburg, meanwhile, is located in Belgium, where she is from. Her attorney requested that the hearing be suspended on the grounds that her client had not been notified of the charges against her. She also reiterated that she will not be able to participate due to “health problems” that the court requested to certify.

Thus, the only defendants present were Avraham Dan On and Shai Dan On, although they only did so virtually. After an hour of hearing, Judge Josefa Izaga called a second session for April 20.

The investigation

The “Ecoteva Case” began in 2013, when it was discovered that the former first lady’s mother had bought an apartment for $832,000, which drew attention because her income did not justify a wealth of that magnitude.

A year later it exploded the “Lava Jato”, one of the biggest transnational corruption scandals of the last decades, in which it was revealed that the Brazilian company Odebrecht had paid bribes to politicians in several Latin American countries to obtain public works contracts.

In the case of Toledo, was accused of having received bribes of at least 31 million dollars while he was president (2001-2006).

Prosecutors concluded that, in order to launder these bribes, Toledo and Karp, with the help of Fernenburg, Eskenazi and the Dan On, created the offshore companies Ecoteva Consulting Group, Milan Ecotech and Ecostate Consulting Group in Costa Rica. .

Ecoteva, the firm that remained in the name of the presidential mother-in-law, carried out real estate operations in Peru for 9.1 million dollars.

According to the prosecution, Odebrecht paid Toledo the money through the company Confiado International Corp., located in Panama, which sent it to Costa Rica, and from there it was transferred to Peru, either to the presidential couple or to their partners. who acted as name lenders.

Thus, Toledo was involved in two causes: one for Odebrecht bribes and another for money laundering through Ecoteva and other companies. For both processes, the Peruvian justice system has processed different extradition orders that the former president’s lawyers have managed to delay.

The same happens in the case of Karp, although she is only charged by Ecoteva, not by Odebrecht.

In 2017, both traveled to the US to avoid prosecution in Peru. However, in 2019, Toledo was arrested on US soil and since then the proceedings against him and his wife have continued in the Andean country.