Italian police made one arrest Monday as prosecutors issued warrants for former South American officials accused in crackdowns on dissent in several countries in past decades, news reports said.

Police in the southern city of Salerno arrested Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, a former naval intelligence officer in Uruguay, as part of an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Italian and non-Italian opponents of South America’s military dictatorships, the news agencies ANSA and Apcom reported.

Prosecutors in Rome issued warrants for the arrests of 140 officials who worked for the military dictatorships or the secret services in the 1970s and 1980s of Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, Apcom reported.

The suspects include Argentina’s former junta leader Jorge Videla and Uruguay’s former dictator Juan Bordaberry, ANSA said. Both are already being held and facing prosecution in their home countries for human rights abuses.

Videla has numerous pending extradition requests from European nations but Argentine authorities generally oppose granting such requests, saying prosecution at home takes precedence in cases of suspected crimes committed on Argentine soil.

Phones were not answered Monday evening at the offices of Rome prosecutors, and police in Salerno could not confirm the reports.

Prosecutors allege that the military governments of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay exchanged information that led to the kidnappings and killings of thousands of dissidents.

It is not the first time Italy has gone after those believed responsible for the so-called Dirty War. In March, an Italian court gave life sentences to five former members of Argentina’s military tried in absentia for murdering three Italians in the 1970s.

Other European governments have also moved to try Dirty War suspects for alleged crimes committed in South America.