The backpack was tied to a half-submerged tree, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte, the nearest town to the research area, which is close to the Javari Valley Native Territory. It is the season of floods in the area and part of the forest is flooded. Federal Police officers transported the items by boat to Atalaia do Norte later in the afternoon. The local indigenous association with which Pereira was working at the time of his disappearance confirmed that firefighters had found a backpack, but said he could not immediately say who it belonged to. The area has only poor riverside communities, where equipment such as laptops is rare. Orlando Posuelo, a member of the Indigenous League known as UNIVAJA, told reporters that indigenous volunteers also found a tarpaulin on the boat used by the missing and a T-shirt belonging to Pereira near the backpack. “Now, the hope is to try to find at least some of the bodies,” he said. Earlier, police found traces of blood on the boat of a fisherman who has been arrested as the only suspect and organically apparently of human origin in the river. Officials said on Saturday that both materials were being analyzed and no further details were given. Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen June 5 near the entrance to Indigenous territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. They returned by boat to the Itaquai River in Atalaia do Norte but never arrived. Violent clashes broke out in this area between fishermen, poachers and government officials. Violence has escalated as drug gangs fight for control of waterways for cocaine, although Itaquai is not a known drug trafficking route. Authorities said the main line of the police investigation into the disappearance showed an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley refuge, which is the second largest indigenous area of Brazil. 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. The suspect denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get the 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. However, while some police officers, the mayor and others in the area have linked the couple’s disappearances to the “fish mafia”, federal police have not ruled out other lines of investigation, such as drug trafficking. Laurimar fisherman Alves Lopes, who lives on the shores of Itaquai, told the AP that he had stopped fishing in the Indigenous area after being caught three times. He said he endured the beating and starvation in prison. Lopez, who has five children, said he fishes near his home only to feed his family and not to sell. “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. Lopez said he was taken to the local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, accusing him of being beaten and left without food. In 2019, Funai official Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was shot 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 believed the killing was linked to his work against fishermen and poachers. 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. An illegal fishing trip to the vast Javari Valley takes about a month, said Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who also served as a city councilor. For each illegal intrusion, a fisherman can earn 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.”
