File No. 8682/3.
Chargé Wilson to the Secretary of State.
Buenos Aires , January 10, 1908 .
Sir: I have the honor to report that the minister for foreign affairs sent me yesterday an extract from a note which the Argentine legation at Washington had received from the Department of State, and asked me to be kind enough to request some further information in the matter.
The facts of the case are, I understand, as follows:
The Argentine legation at Washington requested the provisional arrest and detention of a criminal pending extradition, to which the following reply was received from the department:
In reply I have the honor to say that the search for and location in the United States of offenders against the laws of other countries is generally accomplished through the agency of private detectives, with such assistance as the local police can from time to time give in the ordinary course of their duties, which have to do with crimes and offenses in the United States.
This, the minister claims, is not the practice in Argentine nor in other countries with which the Argentine Republic has extradition treaties, and he considers that the Government on whom the demand for the arrest of an offender is made by another Government is bound to employ the police of the country in apprehending such offender, and that it is not proper that the country making such demand should be obliged to employ private detectives or police.
The minister, stated, however, that if his Government should be forced to employ private means in locating Argentine criminals in the United States, that naturally the Argentine Republic would feel obliged to request the United States to use the same sort of means of locating American offenders, which would certainly in this country have the same effect of making the apprehension of criminals much more expensive and more difficult.
I am, etc.,