ICE arrested the ‘worst of the worst.’ Washington made sure he walked free

The extraordinary case of a Pinochet henchman reveals how US foreign policy has repeatedly trumped justice Imagine you are a Chilean who’s lived in America – the so-called “Land of the Free” – for decades in peace and tranquility.

Suddenly, one humid day in late October 2025, in your adopted home of Fort Myers, Florida, you are snatched in broad daylight then imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Your capture remains completely unknown to the outside world until January the next year, when the US Department of Homeland Security names you among the “worst of worst criminal aliens” arrested by ICE to date.

You are accused of committing “homicide” almost 50 years ago.

Your incarceration makes international headlines, and comes as a personal shock.

But not because you’re innocent.

Read more Hitler’s forgotten Ukrainian state lasted just three days You are no ordinary Chilean.

You are Armando Fernandez Larios, a 76-year-old fascist intelligence veteran who in September 1976 helped assassinate former Chilean Defense Minister Orlando Letelier using a car bomb.

An outspoken opponent of dictator Augusto Pinochet, Letelier fled Santiago a year after the September 1973 CIA coup that installed Pinochet in power.

What role precisely Fernandez Larios played in Letelier’s murder, which also took the life of his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, is still not fully clear.

He has told a variety of stories about what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did and did not do regarding the event.

But Fernandez Larios was a key operative.

It seemed in 2025 ICE had gotten their man, in a huge win for immigration enforcement and international justice.

But this March, Fernandez Larios was released from jail.