Brazilian authorities say one of the central lines of inquiry in the disappearance of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous affairs official Bruno Pereira is focused on an international illegal fishing network operating in the Amazon. Investigators believe the scheme pays impoverished local fishermen to enter Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory and fish there illegally.
Phillips, a freelance journalist, and Pereira were last seen on Sunday morning near the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, a vast region roughly the size of Portugal that borders Peru and Colombia. The two had been in the Sao Rafael community and were traveling by boat to the nearby city of Atalaia do Norte when they failed to arrive.
After criticism over the initial pace of the search, Brazil deployed the army, navy, civil defense teams, state police and Indigenous volunteers to assist in the operation. Federal police said Saturday they were continuing to examine human material found a day earlier in the area where the men vanished, but released no further details.
Authorities say the illegal fishing operation is controlled by local business figures who hire fishermen to enter the Javari Valley, catch fish and deliver the haul to buyers. Among the most prized species is the arapaima, the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, which can weigh up to 200 kilograms, or 440 pounds, and grow as long as 3 meters, or 10 feet. The fish is then sold in regional markets, including Leticia in Colombia, Tabatinga in Brazil and Iquitos in Peru.
The only publicly identified suspect in the disappearances is fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, known locally as Pelado, who is in custody. Indigenous witnesses who were with Pereira and Phillips said Oliveira pointed a rifle at them the day before the pair went missing. He has denied wrongdoing, and his family told The Associated Press that he claimed military police tortured him in an attempt to force a confession.
Pereira, a former head of the local office of Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, had participated in multiple operations targeting illegal fishing in the region. During such raids, authorities typically seize or destroy fishing equipment, issue fines and briefly detain offenders. Under Brazilian law, only Indigenous people are permitted to fish inside their territories.
Atalaia do Norte Mayor Denis Paiva suggested to reporters that the disappearances may have stemmed from tensions linked to fishing enforcement. “The crime’s motive is some personal feud over fishing inspection,” he said, without offering additional details.
Police have shared information about the investigation with Indigenous leaders. While some officers, the mayor and others in the region have connected the case to what they describe as a “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled out other possibilities. The Javari Valley region is also known for significant drug-trafficking activity.
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.
“I made many mistakes, I stole a lot of fish. When you see your child dying of hunger you go get it where you have to. So I would go there to steal fish to be able to support my family. But then I said: I’m going to put an end to this, I’m going to plant,” he said during an interview on his boat.
He said he was taken to local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, where he was beaten and left without food.
One of the arrests was made by Funai official Maxciel Pereira dos Santos. Lopes said he was falsely accused of hunting in an Indigenous area this time. He said he spent a night in the local FUNAI base before being sent to Tabatinga.
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.
Lopes, who has five children, says his family’s primary income is $80 monthly from a federal social program. He also sells watermelon and bananas in Atalaia do Norte’s streets, which earned him around $1,200 last year. He claims he only fishes near his home to feed his family, not sell.
Rubber tappers founded all the riverbank communities in the area. In the 1980s, however, rubber tapping declined and they resorted to logging. That ended, too, when the federal government created the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in 2001. Fishing has become the main economic activity since then.
A fishing trip to the vast Javari Valley lasts around one month, according to Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who also served as a councilman. For each illegal incursion, one fisherman earns at least $3,000.
“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.”
In mayor Paiva’s view, it is not a coincidence that the only two killings of Funai officials in the region occurred during the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has often advocated tapping Indigenous territories’ resources, particularly minerals, by the non-Indigenous and companies.
“This government made people more prone to violence. You talk to someone today and he says he has to take up arms. It was not like this before,” he said.
