Israel's leading Nazi hunter is touring Europe and Latin America in an "Operation Last Chance" to put surviving wartime criminals behind bars.

Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, is demanding that justice be done - even if it is better late than never.

Dr Zuroff is offering rewards of £7,500 to anyone with information on the whereabouts of wanted individuals even though most of the world's worst Nazi war criminals live openly, shielded by complacent governments or statutes of limitations.

The new campaign was launched in Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday and next week Dr Zuroff will be in Europe to name and shame governments, some of them members of the European Union such as Germany, where wanted Nazis have succeeded in evading justice.

"Operation Last Chance really is the last round-up," said Mr Zuroff.

"We have assurances from several South American countries they are willing to deal with the killers who live among them and I am confident that we will see results.

"Also in Europe, we have hope that governments will act, will realise there can be no statute of limitations applicable to these men for what they did."

Highest on the list is Dr Aribert Heim, now 93, the former camp doctor of the Mauthausen death camp in Austria, where Simon Wiesenthal himself was close to death as a prisoner in 1945.

Heim injected patients with lethal drugs and carried out operations on prisoners without anaesthetic because he was "bored".

Dr Zuroff has received information in the past few weeks pinpointing him in Chile and the net may be closing.

In Europe, Operation Last Chance is targeting a number of Nazi war criminals sheltered in countries including Austria and Germany.

One of the men is Milivoji Asner, 94, the former Nazi police chief of Croatia, who was responsible for the slaughter of Jews, gipsies and resistance fighters.

Asner is living comfortably in Austria but is terrified of deportation back to Croatia, where he faces war crimes charges.

"Of course there are dozens, hundreds more, hiding all over the world. But we want the biggest fish caught first. And we want to let them know we will never stop hunting them," said Dr Zuroff.

telegraph.co.uk