Israeli businessman Josef (Yossi) Maiman signed an agreement with the State Prosecutor’s Office in Peru and will testify against former President Alejandro Toledo. According to a report in the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, Maiman signed the agreement with the special investigative team headed by prosecutor Hamilton Castro. He is expected to testify against Toledo and his wife Eliane Karp in three bribery cases in which he has been investigated for the crime of money laundering.
Judicial sources explained to El Comercio that the negotiations with the former friend of Toledo began months before, but only a few weeks ago an agreement was reached which promises to provide his statement and documentation related to the proceedings.
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The first, the Odebrecht Affair, concerns the alleged bribe that Toledo received through the mediation of Maiman’s Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. The company allegedly transferred at least $11 million to the accounts of companies owned by Maiman in the Citi Bank branch in London, from which the money was transferred to accounts in Switzerland and Panama, which are related to Toledo itself.
A lawsuit in Peru claims that Toledo used some of the money to buy a house in the luxury Casuarinas neighborhood of the capital Lima for $3.75 million, and two offices in the tower called Omega, for $882,000. In return for the bribe, President Toledo has ostensibly promised Oderbrecht a bid to build a high-speed highway linking Brazil and Peru to the Pacific coast. The money was transferred to Toledo between 2005 and 2008 (then a visiting professor at Stanford University), with President Alan Garcia at the head of Peru. Payments were made in accordance with the progress of work on the road.
The second case in which Maiman is expected to testify is the Ecoteva affair, in which an investigation is being conducted on a company named Costa Rica that allegedly used President Toledo to receive the bribe from Oderbrecht. The company was registered in the name of Toledo’s mother-in-law, Eva Fernbug.
The money deposited in Ecoteva’s account was allegedly transferred to a company called Confederation International, of which Emmanuel was listed as the owner. Toledo changed his explanations several times about the source of the money in an account. Among other things, he claimed that the money was paid by his mother-in-law from Germany.
The third affair is also related to a Brazilian company, the conglomerate Camargo Correa, which allegedly bribed Toledo with the help of Maiman.
In April, media outlets in Peru reported that Maiman was in talks to become a state witness in the affair, but it runs into difficulties. That same month the Peruvian authorities issued an order to investigate Maiman. According to the report in El Comercio, in the past few weeks, the contacts, which matured into an agreement between the prosecution and Maiman, have resumed.
