Former governor of Puerto Rico arrested on corruption charges

Wanda Vazquez is charged with conspiracy, federal programmes bribery and honest services wire fraud, officials say.

The former governor of Puerto Rico Wanda Vazquez was arrested on bribery charges related to the financing of her 2020 campaign, and if convicted, could face up to 20 years in prison, United States officials said.

In a statement on Thursday, the US Department of Justice said Vazquez, 62, is accused of engaging in a bribery scheme from December 2019 through June 2020 with several people, including a Venezuelan-Italian bank owner, a former FBI agent, a bank president and a political consultant.

“The alleged bribery scheme rose to the highest levels of the Puerto Rican government, threatening public trust in our electoral processes and institutions of governance,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A Polite, Jr said in the statement.

“The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who wrongly believe there is one rule of law for the powerful and another for the powerless,” Polite said.