Police in Brazil are to indict a Colombian fish trader as being the alleged mastermind behind the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. Federal police officials said at a media conference in Manaus yesterday (January 23) that Ruben Dario da Silva Villar provided the ammunition to kill the pair, made phone calls to the confessed killer before and after the crime and paid his lawyer, although Mr Villar has denied any wrongdoing.
Police report that fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira has confessed to shooting both victims. He has been under arrest since shortly after the killings in early June.
He and three other relatives are accused of participating in the crime. They all live in an impoverished riverine community inside a federal agrarian reform settlement between the city of Atalaia do Norte and Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.
Mr Villar is already being held on charges of using false Brazilian and Peruvian documents and leading an illegal fishing scheme. According to the investigation, he financed local fishermen to fish inside Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.
In a statement, UNIVAJA, the local indigenous association that employed Mr Pereira, said it believed there were other significant plotters behind the killings who have not been arrested.
Mr Pereira and Mr Phillips, who was researching a book about how to save the world’s largest rainforest, were travelling in the remote area of the Amazon when they disappeared. Their bodies were recovered after the confessions.
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