ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) – Brazil’s search for an indigenous expert and journalist who disappeared in a troubled area of the Amazon a week ago has led to the discovery of a backpack, a laptop and other personal belongings of men submerged in a river.
The objects were found on Sunday afternoon and Federal Police officers were transported by boat to Atalaia do Norte, the city closest to the search. In a statement Sunday night, police said they had identified the objects as the belongings of the two missing men, including a health card and clothes of Bruno Pereira, the Brazilian indigenous expert.
The backpack, which was identified as belonging to Britain’s freelance journalist Dom Phillips, was found tied to a tree that was half submerged, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte. It is the end of the rainy season in the region and part of the forest is flooded.
The incident came a day after police reported finding traces of blood on the boat of a fisherman who is being held as the sole suspect in the disappearance. Officers also found organic matter of apparent human origin in the river. Materials are being analyzed.
Search teams that found the laptop and other objects on Sunday 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 by volunteers from the Matis indigenous group.
“We used a small canoe to go into the shallow water. Then we found a canvas, shorts and a spoon, “one of the volunteers, Binin Beshu Matis, told The Associated Press.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on June 5 near the entrance to the indigenous territory of the Javari Valley, which borders Peru and Colombia. They returned alone by boat to the Itaquai to Atalaia do Norte but never arrived.
Violent conflicts have been reported in that area between fishermen, poachers and government agents. Violence has grown as drug gangs fight for control of waterways to ship cocaine, although Itaquai is not a known drug trafficking route.
Authorities say a major line of police investigation into the disappearance 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 kilograms (440 pounds) and can reach 3 meters (10 feet). The fish is sold in nearby cities such as Leticia, Colombia, Tabatinga, Brazil, and Iquitos, Peru.
The only known suspect in the disappearances is the fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who is under arrest. According to the Indians who were with Pereira and Phillips, he brandished a rifle the day before the couple disappeared.
The suspect denies any crime and said he was tortured by military police in an attempt to obtain a confession, his family told 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.
“The motive for the crime is a personal dispute over the inspection of the fishery,” Atalaia do Norte Mayor Denis Paiva told reporters without giving further details.
AP had access to information that police shared with the indigenous leadership. But while some police officers, the mayor 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.
Fisherman Laurimar Alves Lopes, who lives on the shores of Itaquai, told AP that he stopped fishing within indigenous territory after being arrested three times. He said he suffered beatings and starvation in prison.
Lopes, who has five children, said he only fishes near his home to feed his family, not to sell.
“I made a lot of mistakes, I stole a lot of fish. When you see that your child is starving, go find him or her. So I went there to steal fish so I could support my family. But then I said, “I’m going to end this, I’m going to plant,” he said during an interview on his boat.
Lopes said he was taken to the local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, accusing him of being beaten and left without food.
In 2019, Funai officer Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was killed on the scales 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.
Rubber caps founded all the riparian communities in the area. In the 1980s, however, rubber work declined and they resorted to logging. This also ended when the federal government created the Indigenous Territory of the Javari Valley in 2001. Fishing has become the main economic activity since then.
An illegal fishing trip to the vast Javari Valley takes about a month, said Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who also served as a councilor. For every illegal raid, a fisherman can earn at least $ 3,000.
“The fishermen’s financiers are Colombians,” Felipe said. “In Leticia, everyone was angry with Bruno. This is not a small game. They may have sent a gunman to kill him. “