A Brazilian federal police investigator said Wednesday night that a suspect had confessed to killing an indigenous expert and a journalist in a remote part of the Amazon, and had taken officers to the place where the bodies were buried. .
Police said at a news conference in the Amazonian city of Manaus that the main suspect in the case confessed Tuesday night and described what happened to the couple who disappeared on June 5.
Investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said 41-year-old Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, nicknamed Pelado, told officers he used a firearm to kill Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and freelance journalist Dom Phillips of Great Britain.
Officials said Pelado took police to a place where they recovered human remains, about three kilometers inside the forest, on Wednesday. The remains had not yet been positively identified.
When federal police announced their press conference, Pereira’s comrades called a vigil in front of the headquarters of the Brazilian government’s indigenous affairs agency in Brasilia. Pereira was out of the agency.
A protester holds a banner with a picture of British journalist Dom Phillips, left, and indigenous expert Bruno Araujo Pereira during a protest in Manaus on Wednesday. (Suamy Beydoun / Reuters)
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on a boat on a river near the entrance to the indigenous territory of the Javari Valley, which borders Peru and Colombia. Violent conflicts have been reported in that area between fishermen, poachers and government agents.
The natives who were with Pereira and Phillips have said that Pelado brandished a rifle on them the day before the two men disappeared.
Pelado’s brother Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, also 41, is also in custody.
Pelado’s family told The Associated Press that he denied any wrongdoing and said police tortured him in an attempt to obtain a confession.
Official search teams had concentrated their efforts around a point on the Itaquai River where a tarpaulin of the boat used by the missing men was found on Saturday.
Police and rescuers are looking for Phillips and Pereira on Sunday in Atalaia do Norte. (Bruno Kelly / Reuters)
Authorities began searching the area and found a backpack, a laptop and other personal items submerged underwater on Sunday. Police said the items belonged to the missing men.
Police previously reported that he had found traces of blood on Pelado’s boat. Officers also found organic matter of apparent human origin in the river that was sent for analysis.
‘Fish Mafia’
Authorities say a main line of investigation has been aimed at an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley Reserve, Brazil’s second-largest indigenous territory.
One of the most valuable targets is the world’s largest freshwater fish with scales, the arapaima. It weighs up to 200 kilos and can reach three meters. The fish is sold in nearby cities, such as Leticia, Colombia; Tabatinga, Brazil; and Iquitos, Peru.
Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, the second from the left, was taken out of court on Wednesday by civilian and military police officers in Atalia do Norte, Amazonas state, Brazil. (Edmar Barros / The Associated Press)
Pereira, who previously headed the local office of the Brazilian government’s indigenous agency, known as FUNAI, has been involved in several operations against illegal fishing. In these operations, as a rule, fishing gear is confiscated or destroyed, while fishermen are fined and detained briefly. Only indigenous peoples can legally fish in their territories.
AP had access to information that police shared with the indigenous leadership. Although some police officers and others in the region link the couple’s disappearances to the “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled out other lines of investigation, such as drug trafficking.
In 2019, Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, a FUNAI officer, was shot in the balance in Tabatinga in front of his wife and daughter-in-law. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told AP that they believe the murder was related to his work against poachers and poachers.