Lenín Moreno, former president of Ecuador, has been sentenced to five years under house arrest after being found guilty of accepting bribes related to the construction of the country's largest hydroelectric power plant.

An Ecuadorian court has convicted 73-year-old former President Lenín Moreno of bribery stemming from corruption linked to the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project. According to reporting from NewsWire, Moreno was found guilty of accepting bribes connected to Chinese state-owned company Sinohydro, which constructed the roughly $2 billion facility. The court has permanently barred him from holding public office.

Moreno will serve his five-year sentence under house arrest, a provision made due to his physical disability that limits his mobility. The conviction relates to activities during his tenure as vice president under former President Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2013, before Moreno himself served as president from 2017 to 2021. Prosecutors determined that the corruption network operated over several years around the hydroelectric project, with alleged bribes totaling approximately $76.1 million—about 4% of the project's overall value.

The case has extended beyond Moreno himself. His wife and daughter were each sentenced to 30 months in prison, and other relatives were also convicted in connection with the scheme. The court has ordered all those found guilty to repay three times the amount they illicitly received. Sinohydro began construction of the plant in 2010 and handed it over to Ecuador in 2016, though the project has subsequently faced criticism regarding technical and structural problems.

Moreno becomes the third former Ecuadorian president to face conviction for corruption, joining former Presidents Rafael Correa and Jamil Mahuad in this distinction.