LIMA, Peru — A former Peruvian president is a fugitive, charged with taking bribes. In Colombia, prosecutors say its president’s re-election campaign accepted dirty money. And intelligence agents in Venezuela arrested journalists and researchers looking into scandals there.

Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal is shaking the continent’s political establishment.

It can all be traced back to Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction company, which has built major projects throughout the region and late last year settled with the United States, Brazil and Switzerland for up to $4.5 billion under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for an elaborate bribe scheme involving $800 million in payoffs in exchange for lucrative contracts.

It was the largest anticorruption settlement in history.

Prosecutors said the company paid bribes on 100 projects in more than a dozen countries, from Mexico to Angola, in one case buying a local bank branch to hide the transactions, and even opening a division specifically dedicated to payoffs.

Throughout Latin America, the company built bridges, dams, power plants, roads and stretches of a highway to link Brazil and Peru that went more than four times over budget. Nearly three years of investigations have resulted in 77 Brazilian Odebrecht executives signing plea deals, and the company’s former chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht, is in prison.