A main line of police investigation into the disappearance of a British journalist and an Indigenous official in the Amazon points to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory.
Vendor Antonio Rodrigues do Santos works at the fish market in Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas state, Brazil, Friday, June 10, 2022.
The only known suspect in the disappearances is fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who is under arrest. According to accounts by Indigenous people who were with Pereira and Phillips, he brandished a rifle at them the day before the pair disappeared. He denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get a confession, his family told the Associated Press..
Fisherman Laurimar Alves Lopes, 45, who lives on the banks of Itaquai river, where the pair disappeared, told the AP he gave up fishing inside the Indigenous territory after being detained three times. He said he endured beating and starvation in jail. In 2019, Santos was gunned down in Tabatinga in front of his wife and daughter-in-law. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told the AP they believe the crime is linked to his work against fishermen and poachers.
“The fishermen’s financiers are Colombians,” Felipe said. “In Leticia, everybody was angry with Bruno. This is not a little game. It’s possible they sent a gunman to kill him.”