After escaping justice following the mass-murdering tens of thousands of innocents, it’s fair to say that as a fugitive Nazi in the post-war years, you’ll be looking over your shoulder until the rest of your life. Keeping a low profile is key, as is employing a trusted bodyguard who is even nastier and more lethal than your bodyguards like Alvaro De Castro.
As the infamous Klaud ”Butcher of Lyon” Barbie found himself on the run in Bolivia under a fake name, he needed to ensure that few of his countless surviving victims of the relatives of those he slaughtered would be able to get their rightful revenge. Often by Barbie’s side was a man named Alvaro De Castro.
Very little is known about De Castro’s early life, and there are next to no photos of him online apart from one of him standing next to Barbie. He joined Barbi’s inner circle as a military trained, neo-Nazi Paramilitary. He was heavily connected to both the illegal drug trade and was friends with multiple powerful drugs lords across Central and South America. As the two grew closer, they began to work together in even more sinister ways and criminal business.
Together with Barbie, who was using the alter ego at the time and running a show company registered in Austria, the pair set up an illegal weapons company and began funnelling military-grade arms to various ruthless drug cartels on the continent. When De Castro was arrested, he admitted in interviews that he had previously carried out obscure and presumably violent enforcement and protection work for drug lords in South America.
Witnesses reported that Barbie had an intense interest in the searches of infamous Nazis, such as Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. Barbie and De Castro reportedly talked in depth about the cases and hunt for Josef Mengele and Eichmann, Barbie and De Castro wanted to support and assist them and any other similar Nazi figures in remaining on the run.
When Barbie was later arrested for his crimes against humanity, De Castro continued to maintain correspondence, presumably unaware that all of the communications would be intercepted. He unwittingly led to the discovery of a group named ”The Fiances of Death”, a group of Nazis and Fascists with extensive military training who were involved in dark deeds across the Americas. From gun running to supplying tanks to the Bolivian army to assist them in a coup d’état. There are even rumours that people like Barbie and De Castro had a hand in the death of Che Guevara.
