During his first government, the Andean country suffered from hyperinflation and violence from rebel groups, but years later the Peruvians gave the charismatic political leader a second term that was under judicial scrutiny.
García was under scrutiny for alleged bribes paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht to obtain a construction contract for the Lima subway during his second term.
According to the prosecution, then-President García and 21 other officials conspired to “facilitate” the Dutch company ATM Terminals to win in 2011 the concession for the North Terminal of the port of Callao, neighboring Lima.
In 2018, García claimed to be “politically persecuted”, when the siege around him began to tighten: at the end of that year, he failed in his attempt to obtain asylum in Uruguay to avoid the prosecution’s investigation for alleged corruption.
“Find something,” Garcia said then. “Prove it then, you morons!” García had declared on April 16, 2019 that he would not hide, in a tacit allusion to the frustrated asylum that he requested from Uruguay.
But the former president died on April 17, 2019 at the age of 69, after shooting himself in the head when the police were preparing to arrest him for a bribery scheme related to Odebrecht, following an order issued by the Judiciary.
Alexander Toledo (2001-2006)
Toledo is free on bail in the United States while he faces extradition proceedings to Peru where he is accused of receiving $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht during his tenure.
The former president was for a long time the emblematic fugitive of this group of politicians. He escaped to the United States in January 2017, when the courts were preparing to impose preventive detention on him.
The prosecution accuses Toledo, among other charges, of receiving a $20 million bribe from Odebrecht to award the company a contract for the construction of sections one and three of the Interoceanic Highway, which connects Brazil and Peru through the Amazon jungle.
Toledo, who denies the accusations, inaugurated the route in 2006 together with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who spent a year and a half in prison on charges related to the construction company.
In March 2019, the Peruvian-Israeli businessman Josef Maiman, a personal friend of Toledo, signed an effective collaboration agreement with the prosecution and confirmed that Odebrecht deposited not 20, but 35 million in his accounts as bribes for the former president, according to reports. press.
Valentin Paniagua (2000-2001)
He is the only ex-president of Peru in the last three decades that has not been accused of corruption. Paniagua led a transition government after the resignation of former president Alberto Fujimori by fax from Japan, after the outbreak of what is considered the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the South American country.
Paniagua, who passed away in 2006, was an experienced politician and was elected as a representative to Congress in various terms. When he took over the interim presidency he was a legislator for the center Popular Action party.
Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000)
He is serving a 25-year prison sentence for being the mastermind behind the murder of 25 people, including a minor, by a military and police group that acted behind the scenes in the fight against the leftist rebel group Sendero Luminoso, which sought to seize power by force.
Fujimori, who has also been convicted of corruption, was pardoned by former president Kuczynski on Christmas 2018, but this benefit was later annulled during the Vizcarra government period.Reut