Former President of Venezuela, Alejandro Toledo is a visiting scholar at Stanford where he is researching for a his planned book on education in Latin America. The subject is important to Toledo because he rose from poor upbringing to acclaimed academic and ultimately President of the country. However, his revered status could come crumbling down if the international arrest warrant for Toledo is true.
Toledo is accused of taking bribes during his presidency. The accusation is based upon information obtained during the plea bargain of Odebrecht struck with the US Justice Department where he admitted that he paid over $800 million in bribes throughout Latin America. Included in that amount is $29 million to Venezuelan politicians during Toledo’s presidency. Odebrecht’s bribes were an attempt for his construction company to win a contract to build a highway from Brazil to Peru;s Pacific coastline.
With the arrest warrant in place, the hunt is on to locate him. He was thought to be in Paris now San Francisco. He could hide out in Israel because his wife a dual Belgian-Israeli citizenship and Israel does not have an extradition treaty with the South American nation.
And if he is found caught and found guilty, he might end up in the same prison as Alberto Fujimori, a former strongman.
What I just want to know is has Toledo been doing this for a while? And if he has, why hasn’t he been stopped beforehand and what prompted this search and capture to happen now? It will be interesting to see where they find Toledo hiding and what comes of him when they do find him.