London, Mar 20 (ANI): Nine thousand Nazi war criminals reportedly fled to South America after World War II, leaked secret documents have revealed.

According to secret files in Brazil and Chile, accessed by German prosecutors, an estimated 9,000 war criminals escaped to South America, including Croatians, Ukrainians, Russians and other western Europeans who aided the Nazi murder machine.

The documents revealed that as many as 5,000, went to Argentina; between 1,500 and 2,000 are thought to have made it to Brazil; around 500 to 1,000 to Chile; and the rest to Paraguay and Uruguay.

These numbers do not include several hundred more who fled to the safety of right-wing regimes in the Middle East, The Daily Mail reports.

The files showed that majority of these criminals went to Argentina, after the country's President Juan Peron sold 10,000 blank passports through an organization known as ODESSA, set up to aid German SS officers following the defeat of the Nazis.

Kurt Schrimm, 62, head of the central war criminal authority in Germany, who is among the legal team sifting through archives, believe the file might also provide clues to Nazis who sneaked back to the Fatherland to live out their days undetected. (ANI)