Freelance journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous official Bruno Pereira were last seen last Sunday morning near the Javari Indigenous Territory, an area the size of Portugal bordering Peru and Colombia.  The two men were in the community of Sao Rafael.  They returned by boat to the nearby town of Atalaia do Norte but never arrived.
After a slow start, the army, navy, civil defense, state police and indigenous volunteers have mobilized in the search.  On Saturday, federal police said they were continuing to analyze human material found the previous day in the area where they went missing.  No further details were given.
The program is run by local entrepreneurs, who pay fishermen to enter the Javari Valley, catch fish and hand them over.  One of the most valuable targets is the world’s largest freshwater fish with scales.  It weighs up to 200 kg (440 lbs) and can reach 3 meters (10 feet).  The fish is sold in nearby cities, including Leticia, Colombia, Tabatinga, Brazil, and Iquitos, Peru.
The only known suspect in the disappearances is fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who is in custody.  According to indigenous people who were with Pereira and Phillips, he nailed them with a rifle the day before the couple disappeared.  He denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get a confession, his family told the Associated Press.
Pereira, who previously headed the local office of the Indigenous Government Service, known as FUNAI, has been involved in a number of anti-illegal fishing operations.  In such operations, fishing gear is usually seized or destroyed, while fishermen are fined and detained for a short period of time.  Only the natives can legally fish in their lands.
“The motive for the crime is some personal opposition to the fisheries inspection,” Atalaia do Norte Mayor Denis Paiva told reporters, without giving further details.
The AP had access to information shared by the police with the indigenous leadership.  While some police, the mayor and others in the area have linked the couple’s disappearances to a “fish mafia”, federal police have not ruled out other lines of investigation.  The area has intense drug trafficking activity.
Laurimar fisherman Alves Lopes, 45, who lives on the banks of the Itaquai River where the couple went missing, told the AP that he quit fishing in the Indigenous area after being caught three times.  He said he endured the beating and starvation in prison.
“I made a lot of mistakes, I stole a lot of fish.  When you see your child starve to death, go get it where it’s supposed to be.  So I went there to steal fish so I could support my family.  “But then I said, ‘I will put an end to this, I will plant,'” he said in an interview on his boat.
He said he was taken to the local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, where he was beaten and left without food.
One of the arrests was made by Funai official Maxciel Pereira dos Santos.  Lopez said he was falsely accused of hunting in an indigenous area this time.  He said he spent one night at the local FUNAI base before being sent to Tabatinga.
In 2019, Santos was murdered in Tabatinga in front of his wife and bride.  Three years later, the crime remains unsolved.  His colleagues at FUNAI told the AP that they believe the crime is linked to his work against fishermen and poachers.
Lopez, who has five children, says his family’s main source of income is $ 80 a month from a federal welfare program.  He also sells watermelon and bananas on the streets of Atalaia do Norte, which earned him about $ 1,200 last year.  He claims that he only fishes near his house to feed his family and not to sell.
The rubber tapers established all the communities on the river in the area.  In the 1980s, however, the impact of rubber diminished and they resorted to logging.  This also came to an end when the federal government established the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in 2001. Fishing has been the main economic activity ever since.
A fishing trip to the vast Javari Valley takes about a month, according to Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who also served as a city councilor.  For each illegal intrusion, a fisherman earns at least $ 3,000.
“The fishermen are the financiers,” said Felipe.  “In Leticia, everyone was angry with Bruno.  This is not a little game.  “It is possible they sent a gunman to kill him.”
According to Mayor Paiva, it is no coincidence that the only two assassinations of Funai officials in the region took place during the rule of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who often advocated the exploitation of indigenous resources, especially minerals, by non- Indigenous and companies.
“This government has made people more prone to violence.  You talk to someone today and he says he has to take up arms.  “It was not like that before,” he said.