Lima, Mar 25 (IANS): Peruvian authorities imposed travel restrictions on former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, banning him from leaving the country for 18 months.

Judge Juan Carlos Sanchez said on Saturday that the order was due to an ongoing investigation into allegations that Kuczynski accepted bribes from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, reports Xinhua news agency.

Two residences owned by Kuczynski, located in Lima and the countryside area of Cieneguilla, were also raided on Saturday.

Kuczynski, 79, stepped down on Wednesday before Peru's Congress was scheduled to hold a second round of voting to impeach him for being "morally unfit" for the job.

He reacted to the search operations on Twitter, saying "Let's leave the media show behind and not continue to damage the country's image."

He added that he had "nothing to fear" and pledged to cooperate fully with the authorities.

The allegationsgo back to the early 2000s, when Kuczynski's US-based consulting firm, Westfield Capita, accepted $4.7 million from Odebrecht, which then secured lucrative public works contracts.

The former representative of Odebrecht in Lima, Jorge Barata, has admitted that he had donated $200,000 to Kuczynski's 2016 presidential campaign.