An Ecuadorian court has found former President Lenin Moreno guilty of bribery and sentenced him to five years in prison, in a landmark corruption case tied to the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant — the largest in the country. The 73-year-old, who also has a physical disability preventing him from walking, will serve his sentence under house arrest. He has been permanently barred from holding any public office in the future. China's former ambassador to Quito, Cai Runguo, received the same sentence, while Moreno's wife, daughter, and two brothers were convicted as accomplices and sentenced to two and a half years each.

The case centres on a corruption network that prosecutors say operated between 2008 and 2018, channelling roughly $76.1 million in bribes — equivalent to 4% of the total contract value — through shell companies and overseas accounts in tax havens. The bribes were allegedly paid by Sinohydro, a Chinese state-owned construction firm that built the approximately $2 billion Coca Codo Sinclair plant, which began operating in 2016 and has since suffered significant technical problems, including turbine failures and erosion threatening its infrastructure. Prosecutors argued that Moreno used his position as vice president under Rafael Correa — a role he held from 2007 to 2013 — to facilitate the scheme, with more than $1 million ultimately reaching him and his relatives.

Judge Manuel Cabrera, delivering the ruling after a 31-day trial, stated that "Lenin Moreno's conduct is consistent with the charges brought by the prosecution." Former vice president Jorge Glas, who served as a prosecution witness while himself serving a separate corruption sentence, testified that Moreno called him repeatedly to inquire about the project's progress and financing — matters outside Moreno's formal responsibilities at the time. Moreno, who returned to Ecuador from Paraguay to face trial, denied all wrongdoing. Standing outside the Palace of Justice after the verdict, he insisted: "There is no case. I have not received a single cent," and pointed to Glas as the official responsible for overseeing the Sinohydro contract.

The conviction makes Moreno the third former Ecuadorian president to be sentenced for corruption. Former President Rafael Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in 2020 in a separate bribery case and remains in Belgium; former President Jamil Mahuad received an eight-year sentence in 2014 for misuse of public funds; and former President Abdala Bucaram is awaiting sentencing after a conviction for organised crime. Moreno, who governed Ecuador from 2017 to 2021, was notably tried for crimes committed before his presidency. His time in office was marked by a dramatic political rupture with Correa — under whose banner he had originally run — which turned the two former allies into bitter adversaries. The verdict underscores Ecuador's ongoing judicial reckoning with high-level corruption, particularly surrounding major infrastructure projects financed and built by Chinese state-linked firms during the Correa era.