Buenos Aires provincial police said on Wednesday they recovered a collection of Nazi-era uniforms, weapons, ammunition and other related items from the residence of a man who sold goods online.
Investigators said the probe began after a social media listing posted on Facebook Marketplace on April 8 drew their attention. The post, created under the name Fernando Martinsohn, displayed an image of a U.S. military star and offered military uniforms and accessories for sale. Authorities later identified the person behind the listing as Diego Fernando Martinez.
Acting with a court-ordered search warrant, police entered Martinez's suburban Buenos Aires home. In an official statement, they said the entry hallway contained floor tiles decorated with swastikas. Items confiscated during the search included a copy of "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler and daggers bearing swastika insignia, as well as other uniforms, weapons and ammunition.
Police attempted to obtain comment from Martinez via a Facebook page provided by authorities, but he did not reply to those requests, the statement said. Officials did not specify what formal charges, if any, Martinez may face following the seizure.
Argentina's legal framework makes it illegal to distribute propaganda that promotes ideas of racial superiority, the police noted.
Nazi-related finds surface intermittently in Argentina, the authorities said, a country that received both Holocaust survivors and a number of Nazi war criminals after World War Two, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. The authorities also cited a separate case from last year in which an investigation tied to Nazi-era diaries led Buenos Aires prosecutors to charge the daughter of a senior Nazi official with concealing an 18th-century painting that had been looted during the Holocaust.
The police announcement did not expand on the provenance of the items seized or on any wider investigative steps, and it did not list specific counts or timelines for potential legal action. The public statement confined itself to the facts of the listing, the house search and the catalogue of materials recovered.
The case underscores how online marketplaces can become a point of contact between sellers of military-style items and potential buyers, prompting law enforcement scrutiny when symbols and materials associated with hate propaganda appear, according to the details released by the provincial police.