Mr Vladimiro Montesinos, the fugitive Peruvian spy chief with a personal fortune estimated at one billion dollars, was captured penniless and alone last week in Caracas, Venezuela.
"I'm ready to talk if you're ready to listen," Mr Montesinos told Peruvian investigators after he was whisked home last Tuesday to face 43 charges of corruption, drug-trafficking and murder.
The Montesinos arrest will have far-reaching consequences both for the incoming Peruvian President, Alejandro Toledo, who assumes office on July 28th and for President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, accused of protecting the most wanted man in Latin America.
Mr Toledo was elected by a narrow margin in June's presidential elections amid widespread voter indifference, due largely to the legacy of the Montesinos-Fujimori era.
Mr Montesinos, spy chief for former President Alberto Fujimori, accumulated 2,500 secret videos which revealed the corruption of politicians, generals, journalists and judges, undermining faith in democratic rule.
Mr Fujimori, sacked last year as "morally unfit" to rule, is in self-exile in Japan, protected from growing efforts to bring him home by his dual citizenship.
The "moralisation" of public life was a central theme in Mr Toledo's election campaign, along with the provision of jobs, healthcare and education. Peru's huge external debt commitments will make it difficult to increase social spending, yet Peruvians impatiently await a short-term improvement in living conditions, which Mr Toledo promised.
The forthcoming trial, which may last over a year, will buy time for the new president as he grapples with Peru's chronic social imbalances.
Mr Toledo also faces his own legal tribulations as an unresolved child paternity suit and evidence of cocaine consumption has already damaged his campaign image as a radical anti-corruption candidate.
Meanwhile the role of Venezuelan authorities in the capture of Mr Montesinos remained murky, as President Hugo Chavez owed the Peruvian spy chief a debt of gratitude for granting himself and co-conspirators political asylum after a failed coup attempt in 1992.
Peru recalled its ambassador from Venezuela yesterday, the day after President Chavez said he had recalled Venezuela's ambassador from Lima because of what he called "unfriendly" attempts by Peru to capture Mr Montesinos, warning the integration of the Andean region could be at risk.
Both Venezuela and Peru claim to have been instrumental in the arrest, but it appears that Mr Montesinos's bodyguards were on their way to hand over their boss to the Peruvian embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, to claim a $5 million reward, when they were intercepted by Mr Chavez's police, who took charge of the fugitive.
Mr Montesinos's lawyers said their client still had 30,000 secret videos, a trail of evidence which could destroy the reputation of dozens of legislators newly elected to parliament. Most of Peru's prominent public figures maintained some link to Mr Montesinos, the gatekeeper for business and political advance over the past decade.
Peruvian authorities transferred their prisoner to an underground prison this week - a prison designed by Mr Montesinos himself to house captured guerrilla leaders.
The spectacular unravelling of the Montesinos-Fujimori double act has left Peruvians on the edge of their seats, waiting to see if Mr Montesinos will spill a decade's worth of shady secrets that could trigger fresh political scandal and perhaps put Mr Fujimori in the dock.
"I'm going to ask President Bush to declassify certain documents that . . . would help understand the magnitude of Fujimori's involvement in corruption," President-elect Alejandro Toledo told reporters on a trip to Washington earlier this week.
Meanwhile popular imagination blended with political intrigue this week as Peruvians thronged to open-air masses after a powerful earthquake shook the country.
Some church-goers linked the capture of Mr Montesinos to the rubble around them: "We led the fight against Montesinos," said Mr Juan Roca in Arequipa. "Now we're paying the price.'
Venezuela had a similar experience in 1999 when the worst floods in a century began the same day that President Chavez held a referendum on a radical new constitution.
Priests removed saints from their resting places and paraded them in public, seeking atonement for the alleged heresies of their president.