Ex-presidents sons get top billing in Odebrecht Latin America bribery

THE THREE individuals in Latin America who benefited most from the corruption plot of the giant Odebrecht corruption scam were two sons of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli and  Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo according to renowned Colombian journalist Jorge González in his book “Odebrecht, the complete story”.

The journalist explains how the brothers Ricardo and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares received more than $50 million dollars, while government officials of their father, former ministers Frank de Lima, Demetrio Jimmy Papadimitriu and José Domingo Arias received other sums of money.

In almost 200 pages González details the way in which the Brazilian construction company operated in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Panama to weave the largest corruption network in the region.

With the inspection of court papers and interviews with journalists, prosecutors and judges, the author of the work, published by Penguin Random House under the Aguilar label, describes the way in which Toledo and the Martinelli brothers received multi-million sums of money.

“In Peru, the press managed to determine the unjustified patrimonial growth of Toledo and from the press investigations, it was learned that the patrimony of Toledo came largely from the collection of $35 million on November. 2004 in a private meeting with Marcelo Odebrecht in a hotel in Copacabana (Rio de Janeiro), “González said in an interview with Efe News Agency.

Toledo’s, mother-in-law, Eva Fernenbug, served as a figurehead for the ex-leader to buy in a mansion for $3.7 million in an affluent sector of Lima with money from the bribes of the Brazilian company.

The Odebrecht payments were made in exchange for the construction of the Peru-Brazil Interoceanic Road, “a colossal work that would end up costing $4.233 billion.”

“The initial demand of the Martinellis was $6 million,” says the book in his chapter “The brief splendor of the presidential family”, which shows that bribes for three other works amounted to $49.4 million.

In April this year, The Panama Prosecutor’s Office requested their extradition from the United States last which is in addition to the January request to Interpol for their capture.

In Ecuador, the journalist dug into the evidence that incriminated former Vice President Jorge Glas and former Comptroller General Carlos Pólit with the collection of $33.5 million in bribes for the company to allow the company return to operating in the country years after being expelled.

The introduction, of the book, is an interview with Judge Sergio Moro, the key to discovering the “Lava Jato” scandal, from which the corruption network of Odebrecht broke off, and which sent former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to prison.

“Judge Moro gives a lesson to the judges of the countries, of our subcontinent, regarding the meaning of what he understands as the concept of pragmatism in the application of justice,” he said.

An upcoming book will deal with Mexico and Argentina.