FILES discovered in Argentina could identify thousands of Swiss bank accounts storing money stolen from the Jewish victims of the nazis.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre revealed the names of 12,000 nazis yesterday who fled to and then lived in Argentina in the 1930s, many of whom held such accounts — and has asked Credit Suisse to help identify them.

“We believe that these long-dormant accounts hold monies looted from Jewish victims,” the centre said yesterday.

The papers were found in a store room at a former nazi office in the capital Buenos Aires.

Many nazis sought sanctuary in Argentina following Hitler’s defeat in the second world war.

A series of pro-nazi regimes in the 1930s and 1940s destroyed many papers and other key pieces of evidence after investigations into the whereabouts of property and money stolen during the Holocaust.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre found that many of the nazis listed in the Argentinian files “contributed to one or more bank accounts at the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, which became the Credit Suisse bank.”

Credit Suisse has promised to look into the affair.