The government, long criticized for moving too slowly against alleged Nazi war criminals, says it is willing to investigate new claims that dozens of former Nazis are living in Canada without fear of prosecution. The Jerusalem Post magazine reported last weekend that an American private investigator discovered 157 alleged former Nazis in Canada, most from Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia. Investigator Steve Rambam of New York posed as a professor from a fictitious university. He said he talked to 62 suspected war criminals while pretending to do academic research on law enforcement during World War II. Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, said most of the names compiled by Rambam were already known to his Nazi-hunting organization and to Canadian authorities. Justice Minister Allen Rock also said he doubted the 157 names were newly discovered suspects, but expressed willingness to examine Rambam's information. "I'd be surprised to learn there were that many people that we've overlooked," Rock said. "I haven't seen the information the investigators have amassed. If they wish to share it with us, that would be very helpful." Rambam said some of those he interviewed confessed their crimes during conversations, which he secretly tape recorded. He said he plans to give the tapes and other evidence to the Canadian Jewish Congress to forward to federal investigators. "These people are not hiding," he told the Toronto Star. "They are living blissfully knowing they will never be touched. If you are a war criminal, Canada is your refuge of choice." The Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish organizations have been critical in the past of the Justice Department's record on war crimes prosecutions. Littman wrote to Rock several months ago demanding an independent review of the department's efforts. "It is hard to conceive that any other department would have such a sorry record, such a long list of failures, so many delays and blunders," Littman wrote. "Something has clearly gone seriously wrong." The review was requested after a judge suspended deportation proceedings against suspected war criminals because of interference in the judicial process. Members of the Jewish community _ who have waited decades for the government to prosecute or deport war criminals living in Canada _ were outraged. Only one war criminal ever has been deported and another was extradited. Canada has not convicted any in domestic prosecutions, and did not start serious war-crimes investigations until the 1980s. The United States has deported dozens of alleged war criminals in the past 15 years. The Canadian government is pursuing deportation proceedings against three alleged war criminals: Joseph Nemsila, Antanas Kenstavicius and Konrads Kelejs. Rambam said he interviewed Kenstavicius by telephone and heard graphic descriptions of how Jews were rounded up and murdered in Lithuania. Federal documents released in 1992 revealed that government investigators had 1,117 ongoing investigations against suspected Nazis living in Canada _ including about 300 cases identified as high-priority.