Editing Josef Mengele (section)

===Efforts by Mossad===
In May 1960, [[Isser Harel]], director of the Israeli intelligence agency [[Mossad]], personally led the successful effort to capture [[Adolf Eichmann]] in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|p=139}} Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a [[safe house]] for Nazi fugitives. [[Surveillance]] of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family, and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|pp=142–143}}

Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led Mengele to relocate again in 1960. Former pilot [[Hans-Ulrich Rudel]] put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele cross the border into Brazil.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=273}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|p=162}} He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near [[São Paulo]] until a more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian [[expatriates]] Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in [[Nova Europa]] with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in [[Serra Negra]] in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=279–281}} Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=280, 282}} In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|p=168}}

Meanwhile, [[Zvi Aharoni]], one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|pp=166–167}} Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|pp=184–186}} This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986|pp=184, 187–188}}{{sfn|Horovitz|2018}}