KIDNAPING : Still Dirty Tricks in Argentina : Authorities smash a gang of former police and security officers that had been kidnaping businessmen.

Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected subversion ended early in the 1980s, but some of that era’s dirty tricks did not.

Authorities say they have broken up a gang of former police and security officers--as well as some who were still on active duty--that has been kidnaping businessmen for ransom. Suspects arrested so far include men who worked in an “anti-subversive” unit under Argentina’s military government in the late 1970s, when security forces abducted, tortured and killed thousands of people.

An estimated 9,000 Argentines disappeared in the brutal repression of guerrillas and other suspected subversives during the “dirty war.” Marta Oyhanarte de Sivak, president of a civic action group called Citizen Power, declares that La Banda, as the kidnaping gang is called, is an alarming spin-off from the “dirty war” years.

“They are people who were trained for this kind of thing,” Oyhanarte said in an interview. “They don’t know how to work at anything else.”

And she charged that their crimes are often covered up by military and police forces, even after the return of civilian government in 1983.

“When democracy arrives, they are not detained, they are not sanctioned and so they keep working with the same impunity,” she said.

Police officers kidnaped Oyhanarte’s husband, financier Osvaldo Sivak, in 1979. He was released unharmed but kidnaped again in 1985. He was found dead in 1987.

Jose Ahmed and Alfredo Vidal, both former assistant chiefs of the federal police, were convicted for Sivak’s 1979 kidnaping and served prison sentences from 1986 through 1990. Ahmed and Vidal both had belonged to a notorious police unit charged with fighting “economic subversion” under the military government.

Now, Ahmed is under arrest again in the case of La Banda. Vidal is wanted in the same case.

Since late November, police have detained more than a dozen suspects. They include nine active and former police officers, a former intelligence agent and two retired army officers.

Juan Carlos Arza, one of the active-duty policemen arrested, had served as deputy security chief for Raul Alfonsin, the nation’s civilian president between 1983 and 1989.

Hector Ferrer, a retired army major under arrest, is a former intelligence officer linked to the so-called “painted faces,” a group of rebellious military officers responsible for barracks uprisings in recent years.

Investigation of La Banda began after the kidnaping in August of businessman Mauricio Macri, who was freed after two weeks. Judge Nerio Bonifatti began ordering arrests in late November.

Federal Police Chief Luis Passero acknowledged in a recent magazine interview that under military rule, some bad police officers “took advantage of the legalization of irregularities” for their own benefit. “La Banda acted like guerrillas,” Passero said.

The existence of the gang is a reminder that sequels to the abuse of dictatorial power can be long-lasting.