PPK Admits to Being Financial Adviser on Odebrecht Project Before Political Career

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, known as PPK, has admitted to being a financial adviser for an Odebrecht project.

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PPK previously denied links to the Brazilian company, which has been the center of a major corruption scandal involving almost a dozen countries.

In an interview with Radio Programas del Peru, PPK said he was a banker in New York when he was hired for H2Olmos, an irrigation project. "I was not a minister, but a private person who makes a living as I did during my professional career," he said, explaining he role in the company.

The Odebrecht-owned H2Olmos SA was responsible for a project overseeing the construction of a 20-kilometer tunnel through the Andes to transport water to agricultural lands.

The president has been under heavy scrutiny, given he was a cabinet member of ex-President Alejandro Toledo, who is accused of accepting $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht between 2001-2006.

PPK is not named as a suspect in Brazil's Operation Car Wash investigation.

Odebrecht has admitted to paying about $30 million in bribes, over a 10-year period, to contracts in Peru.

The new development will likely put the Peruvian president in the crosshairs of the country's opposition-controlled Congress which is currently investigating Odebrecht-politician links.