Brazil police probe ties to illegal fishing in case of missing British journalist

Brazil police probe ties to illegal fishing in case of missing British journalist

Brazilian police investigating the disappearance of a British journalist and an indigenous expert in the Amazon rainforest are focusing on people involved in illegal fishing and poaching in indigenous lands, Qazet.az reports according to Reuters.

Two of the officers are Amazonas state police detectives directly involved in the case, while the other is a senior Brazilian federal police officer tracking it closely. They requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

"The principal criminal hypothesis at this point is that the people involved, and their motive, was related to illegal fishing and poaching activities in indigenous territories," said the federal police officer.

Witnesses said they last saw Dom Phillips, a freelance journalist who has written for the Guardian and the Washington Post, on Sunday. Phillips was traveling deep in a lawless part of the Amazon rainforest with Bruno Pereira, a former official with federal indigenous agency Funai.

Torres said he had 300 hundred people, two aircraft and 20 boats conducting the search in what he called a "very difficult region".

"Even if you have 30 aircraft, one million people, it may not work," said Torres, who was also pressed to maintain the search at the summit by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

Fishermen and poachers travel deep into the Javari Valley, next to the border with Peru, to find protected species like the pirarucu fish, which are sold in regional markets in nearby cities such as Tabatinga. In 2019, Maxciel Pereira, who worked with Funai to shut down illegal fishing in the Javari Valley, was shot dead in Tabatinga.