By Lucila Sigal and Leila Miller
BUENOS AIRES, June 10 (Reuters) – Buenos Aires provincial police on Wednesday announced the seizure of Nazi uniforms, weapons, ammunition and accessories from the home of a man who sold items on the internet, authorities said.
Officials said that on April 8 they learned of a post on Facebook Marketplace in which a user under the name Fernando Martinsohn, featuring an image of a U.S. military star, offered to sell military uniforms and accessories. Authorities identified him as Diego Fernando Martinez.
With a court-ordered search warrant, police went to Martinez’s home in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, whose entrance hallway had floor tiles with swastikas, the authorities said in a statement. Among the items seized was a copy of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler and daggers with swastika insignia.
Martinez did not respond to attempts to get comment from him through a Facebook page provided by authorities.
Police did not specify what charges Martinez could face. Argentine law prohibits the distribution of propaganda that promotes ideas of racial superiority.
Nazi-related discoveries occasionally pop up in Argentina, which after World War Two received both Holocaust survivors and dozens of Nazi war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.
Last year, retired Dutch systems specialist Paul Post’s examination of his father’s Nazi-era diaries led to Buenos Aires authorities charging the daughter of a high-ranking Nazi official with concealing an 18th-century painting looted during the Holocaust.
(Reporting by Lucila Sigal and Leila MillerEditing by Bill Berkrot)
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