A Rainforest Tragedy

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Brazilian police arrested a third person over the weekend in connection with the murders of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert researching illegal fishing and poaching, and who went missing in the deep Amazon rainforest earlier this month, the New York Times reported.

Journalist Dom Philips and former government official Bruno Pereira disappeared in the Amazon nearly two weeks ago, prompting authorities to launch a 10-day manhunt in the dense rainforest.

On Saturday, Jefferson da Silva Lima turned himself in after initially fleeing an arrest warrant.

Officials had initially detained brothers Amarildo and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira in connection with the men’s disappearance. Witnesses said the two brothers threatened the victims and later followed Philips and Pereira in a boat shortly before they disappeared.

Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira later confessed to killing the men and led the police to their remains in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest.

An analysis showed that the corpses belonged to Philips and Pereira, who were killed by a firearm, according to police.

Both men had gone to an Indigenous reservation to interview Indigenous patrol teams who were combating illicit fishing and hunting. Pereira, who assisted in the establishment of those patrols, is thought to have made many enemies among the region’s illegal fishermen, poachers, and miners.