The white metal boat was found at a depth of between 20 and 30 meters near the banks of the Itaquaí River, said Police Chief Alex Perez Timóteo. It was loaded with six bags of soil. Police also found the 40-horsepower Yamaha engine. Phillips and Pereira were traveling in the boat on June 5, when they were reported missing after not showing up at their destination in Atalaia do Norte, a small town near the Brazilian-Peruvian border. Three men were arrested for the crime, one of whom confessed to the murder. Last week, he drove police to a remote spot in the jungle where they buried Phillips and Pereira’s bodies after shooting them with shotguns. Another five people are wanted by the authorities for participating in the concealment of the bodies. Although officials have not said anything about the brutal killings, Pereira is believed to have been the men’s main target. An indigenous human rights activist and former federal government official, he was aware of illegal fishing in the area and had been threatened in the past by at least one of the men arrested by police. The area in western Brazil is home to large numbers of turtles and pirarucu, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. The animals have high prices in the markets in Atalaia do Norte, as well as across the border in neighboring Colombia. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST The assassination has sparked outrage in both Brazil and Britain, where Phillips previously worked as an editor for Mixmag magazine in the 1990s. the crime. The number of invasions and attacks recorded on Indigenous land increased from 111 in 2018, the year before Bolsonaro came to power, to 263 in 2020, according to a study complied with by the Indigenous Rights Organization. CIMI.
