LIMA, Peru – Peruvian ex-President Alejandro Toledo on Tuesday called on authorities in his country to open an investigation into his banking accounts in order to clarify corruption allegations over the purchase of two buildings in Lima by his mother in law, for almost $5 million.
“I authorize them to lift all banking secrecy, I will collaborate, even though I have nothing to do [with the purchases]. I will return to Lima soon to give a statement to the Prosecutor’s Office,” Toledo told a local radio station from the U.S., where he currently works as a professor at Stanford University.
Toledo, president of Peru from 2001-2006, claimed to be the victim of a “media lynching” and said there are political motivations attributed to members of the party of former President Alberto Fujimori, whom he described as “his enemies.”
The goal, he said, is to affect and weaken his political career to prevent him to oppose a request for humanitarian pardon for Fujimori filed by his four children.
In recent days, a Lima TV political program revealed that Toledo’s mother-in-law, Eva Fernenbug, 86, bought a house in July of last year for $3.75 million and then an office building for $882,400 last September.
The story notes that the transaction was conducted through a company created in Costa Rica, called Ecoteva Consulting Group, and that negotiations could be a money laundering operation.
“I’m transparent, I’m not a millionaire, I’m in peace with my conscience,” Toledo said, adding that all dealings “were absolutely legal, through the use of a bank loan.”
Toledo said he owns a house in Lima and a beach house in Punta Sal, in northern Peru, both acquired before he became president.
