- They were last seen alive in the Javari Valley of the Amazon region.
- Police arrested a man on Tuesday on a weapons charge, but have no evidence linking him to the pair’s disappearance.
- his lawyer is awaiting a hearing on the weapons accusation.
According to authorities and the detainee’s lawyer, Brazilian police have arrested a man on a weapons charge but have no proof linking him to the disappearance of a missing British journalist and an indigenous expert in the Amazon jungle.
Witnesses say Dom Phillips, a freelance journalist who has written for the Guardian, the Washington Post, and other media, and Bruno Pereira, a former senior official with the federal indigenous agency Funai, were last seen on Sunday.
They were on a reporting mission in the Javari Valley, a remote rainforest region home to the world’s biggest population of uncontacted indigenous people, as well as cocaine-smuggling gangs, illegal hunters, and fisherman.
The Brazilian government despatched navy, army, and federal police officers to assist in the search for the two in a vast indigenous reserve the size of Austria.
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Pereira has routinely clashed with fishermen plundering protected fishing stocks as a former Funai officer stationed there, and police said detectives were considering “escalating” tensions as a crucial issue.
Several fisherman who were among the last individuals to see the pair alive were questioned by civil police in the town of Atalaia do Norte.
According to reports, one of the fishermen, Amarildo da Costa, also known as “Pelado,” came in Atalaia do Norte in handcuffs on Tuesday for questioning after police discovered an empty shotgun casing and pellets in his home when they went looking for him.
As a result, he was arrested, and his lawyer, Ronaldo Caldas, said he is awaiting a hearing on the weapons accusation.
Da Costa lived close where the two men went missing, according to the detective, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing case. Da Costa’s lawyer stated that his client was not involved in the incident.
Guilherme Torres, the head of the Amazonas state civil police’s interior section, told Reuters that it was still unclear whether a crime had occurred, and that they could be lost. He did say, though, that Pereira had received a threatening letter from a fisherman recently.
The disappearance of Phillips and Pereira, who both had years of experience working in the Amazon, has sparked global concern from rights groups, environmentalists, politicians and press freedom advocates.
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