#barbadillo

Peru has a prison which is for ex-presidents. An astonishing number of recent Peruvian presidents have been in trouble with the law because of corruption or human rights abuses.

Maybe they could go international and build an addition in this cárcel to accommodate Donald Trump. Let's all drink more Peruvian coffee!

The Barbadillo prison is located on the grounds of a police academy in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Lima. Due to violence and overcrowding at Peru's standard prisons, part of the police compound has been converted into a kind of VIP jail with three custom-built cells that are more like small apartment units. Barbadillo's first inmate, former President Alberto Fujimori, arrived in 2007. He is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses. Former President Pedro Castillo arrived last December after he was arrested for trying to dissolve congress and rule by decree. Alejandro Toledo, who faces charges of money laundering from his time as president in the early 2000s, arrived at the prison in April.

Trump's hypothetical cell could be decorated with faux classified documents wallpaper. Across the hallway within sight of his cell would be an electoral vote map from 2020.

From France to Brazil to South Korea, many countries have prosecuted and jailed former presidents, while in the United States, former President Donald Trump could be sent to prison if convicted of mishandling classified documents after he left the White House. But Peru may hold the record for the most ex-leaders behind bars at one time, according to Rosa María Palacios, a Lima lawyer and political commentator.

This would be a great niche business for Peru. They could start work on a Putin cell. Every day he would wake up to a recording of Ukraine's national anthem sung by a NATO choir.

In Peru's case, kickbacks seem to pave the road to Barbadillo for many of their ex-presidents.

Nearly every Peruvian president over the past three decades has been accused of corruption. In most of these cases, they became entangled in a wide-ranging scandal involving Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction firm that admitted to paying $800 million in kickbacks to politicians across Latin American in exchange for public works contracts. In fact, the only reason there was room at Barbadillo when former President Toledo arrived in April is because another former president, Ollanta Humala — who had spent 18 months of pre-trial detention there — had been released, freeing up one of the three cells. Both former presidents face charges related to the Odebrecht scandal.

Odebrecht is a Brazilian company. That reminds me that Jair Bolsonaro ought to be eligible for a cell at a multinational version of Barbadillo.