Brazilian police say gangs not involved in Amazon killings | Crime News

Indigenous group rejects police statement, saying Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips crossed paths with criminal group.

Federal police in Brazil have said the investigation into the killings of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert in the Amazon rainforest so far suggests that those responsible acted without the involvement of a criminal organisation.

In a statement on Friday, police said they were still searching with the help of local Indigenous group UNIVAJA for the boat Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were travelling in when the two men were last seen alive.

They said their preliminary investigation suggests the crime involved more individuals beyond the suspect who confessed to the murders and that additional people could be arrested.

“The investigations also point out that the killers acted alone, with no heads or criminal organisation behind the crime,” police said.

But UNIJAVA challenged such investigations, saying it had informed the federal police numerous times since the second half of 2021 that there was an organised crime group operating in the Javari Valley.

“The cruelty of the crime makes clear that Pereira and Phillips crossed paths with a powerful criminal organisation that tried at all costs to cover its tracks during the investigation,” the Indigenous group, which had been leading search efforts for the pair, said in a statement.

Brazilian authorities on Wednesday discovered human remains in a remote part of the Amazon after a suspect confessed to killing Phillips and Pereira, and took investigators to where the bodies were buried.

The discovery ended a grim 10-day search for the two men, who were last seen on June 5 near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous territory, which borders Peru and Colombia.

Their disappearance had sparked global concern and widespread calls for Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to do more to help search groups find the pair.

Bolsonaro was slammed for what many called a slow and lacklustre response, and for remarks he made saying Phillips and Pereira “were on an adventure that is not recommended”.

He also suggested that Phillips, a freelance journalist who regularly contributed to The Guardian, had made enemies by writing about environmental issues.

Bolsonaro said in a tweet on Thursday, “Our condolences to family members and may God comfort everyone’s heart.”

Meanwhile, Guilherme Torres of the Amazonas state police on Thursday said the remains were expected to be identified within days, and if confirmed as the missing men, “will be returned to the families of the two”.

A federal police plane flew the remains to the capital, Brasilia, on Thursday evening, and officials said testing would begin on Friday.

Dom Phillips’ many friends will have different takes on the meaning of his life and death. This is mine: Let’s carry on his work.

— jonathanwatts (@jonathanwatts) June 16, 2022

Two federal police officials in Brasilia told The Associated Press on Thursday that a total of five people were being investigated, including the fisherman who confessed and his brother, who was arrested on Tuesday as a suspect.

At a news conference Wednesday night in the Amazon city of Manaus, federal police investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said the prime suspect in the case, 41-year-old Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, nicknamed “Pelado”, told officers he used a firearm to kill the men.

Relatives, friends and colleagues have paid tribute to the pair and called for justice and accountability.

“Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love,” Phillips’s wife, Alessandra Sampaio, said in a statement on Thursday. “Today, we also begin our quest for justice.”