ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) – The search for the Brazilian indigenous expert and journalist, who went missing in the Amazon region last week, ended when the backpack, laptop and other personal belongings of a man who had sunk in the river were discovered. .
The items were found Sunday afternoon and federal police officers took them by boat to Atalaya do Norte, a nearby research town. In a statement released Sunday night, police said they identified the items as belonging to a missing man, including a health card and clothes by Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.
The backpack, which was found to belong to British journalist Dom Phillips, was found tied to a half-submerged tree, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte. The rainy season is coming to an end in the region and parts of the forest are flooded.
The development came after police announced they had seen traces of blood on a fishing boat taken as the only suspect in the disappearance. Officials also found man -made organics in the river. The materials are evaluated.
Search teams that found the laptop and other items on Sunday focused their efforts on the Ithaca River site, where a boat cover used by missing people was found by volunteers from the Matisse indigenous group on Saturday. .
“We used a small boat to go to the surface. Then we saw a tarp, shorts and a spoon,” Binin Beshu Matis, one of the volunteers, told The Associated Press.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on June 5 at the entrance to the Javanese Valley, which borders Peru and Colombia. They return alone by boat to Itaquai, Atalaia do Norte, but they cannot get there.
On this side, there was violent rivalry between fishermen, hunters and government agents. Violence escalated as drug gangs struggled to deliver cocaine into waterways, although Itaquai is an unknown drug route.
Authorities said the main line of the police investigation refers to the disappearance of an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, Brazil’s second native area.
One of the most important targets is the largest freshwater fish with scales in the world, the arapima. It weighs up to 200 kilograms (440 lbs) and can reach 3 meters (10 feet). The fish is sold in nearby towns including Leticia, Colombia, Tabinga, Brazil and Iquitos, Peru.
The only known suspects in the disappearance were fishermen Amarildo and Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who were arrested. According to the natives of Pereira and Philip, he fired a rifle the day before the couple disappeared.
The suspect denied any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to get a confession, his family told The Associated Press.
Pereira, who previously headed the local office of the Brazilian government’s resident agency known as FUNAI, has been involved in several operations against illegal fishing. In such operations, fishing gear is usually confiscated or destroyed and fishermen are fined and imprisoned for a short time. Only indigenous people can legally fish in their territory.
“The cause of the crime was a certain personal resentment for the fishery inspection,” Denis Paiva, mayor of Atalaya do Norte, told reporters, without elaborating.
The PA has access to police information shared with local authorities. But while some police, the mayor and the disappearance of other couples in the region have been linked to the “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled out other lines of investigation, such as drug trafficking. .
Fisherman Laurimar Alves Lopez, who lives off the coast of Ithaca, told the AP he stopped fishing after being caught three times in the native area. He said he was beaten and starved in jail.
Lopez, who has five children, said she fishes near the house just to feed the family and not to sell.
“I made a lot of mistakes, I stole a lot of fish. When you see your child hungry, go where you want. So I went fishing to support my family. “But then I said,‘ I’m going to finish this, I’m going to plant it, ’” he said in an interview on his boat.
Lopez said he was taken to Tabatinga three times at the local federal police headquarters on suspicion of beating him and leaving him without food.
In 2019, Maxiel Pereira dos Santos, a Funai official, was killed in front of his wife and son -in -law in Tabinga. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told the AP they thought the killing was related to his activities against fishermen and hunters.
Rubber cones established all the communities along the river bank on this side. However, in the 1980s rubber flow was reduced and trees were cut down. It also came to an end when the federal government created an indigenous Javanese Valley area in 2001. Since then, fishing has become an important economic activity.
Illegal fishing in the Javari Valley has been going on for about a month, said Manuel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who is also a council member. A fisherman can earn at least $ 3,000 for each illegal intrusion.
“The fishermen’s financiers are Colombians,” Felipe said. “Everyone is angry with Leticia and Bruno. This is not a small game. “They may have sent weapons to kill him.”
Source: Huffpost
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.