BRIBERY:
Prosecutors said Chinese company Sinohydro paid bribes totaling US$76 million to build Ecuador’s biggest hydroelectric dam
An Ecuadoran court on Friday sentenced former Ecuadoran president Lenin Moreno to five years in prison for accepting bribes from a Chinese company that built the country’s biggest hydroelectric dam. The prosecution said on social media that Moreno, who governed from 2017 to 2021, was among 20 people convicted in the case involving the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair dam by China’s Sinohydro. Moreno was vice-president under socialist former Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa at the time of the alleged corruption, between 2007 and 2013.
Former Ecuadoran president Lenin Moreno, front, arrives at the Ecuadoran National Court in Quito on Friday.
He succeeded Correa, with the latter’s backing, but later fell out with his mentor by shifting to the right and aligning himself more closely with the US. Moreno has already announced plans to appeal the court’s ruling, which also saw his wife and other relatives sentenced to about three years in prison for complicity.
