MADRID, 7 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Federal Police (PF) of Brazil has arrested five suspects this Saturday in the investigation into the murder of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira, whose bodies were found on June 5 in the Amazon.
The Brazilian authorities have carried out this Saturday an operation against illegal fishing in the Vale do Javari region with the aim of carrying out seven preventive arrest warrants, according to a statement from the PF.
Two of the people against whom the Supreme Court has issued preventive detention are already detained. This is Amarildo Costa de Oliveira, alias ‘Pelado’ and suspected of participating in the crime; and Rubén Darío da Silva Villar, a Colombian citizen known as ‘Colombia’, arrested for using false documents.
The PF operation has indicated that the suspect ‘Colombia’ would be the “leader and financier of an armed criminal association dedicated to the practice of illegal fishing in the region.” ‘Colombia’ would have been responsible for marketing large quantities of fish in order to export them to neighboring countries.
Three of the other five detainees are relatives of “Pelado” and are being investigated for participating in the concealment of the victims’ bodies.
“All are being investigated for associating with ‘Colombia’ to carry out illegal fishing in the region,” the PF announced, before adding that “investigations continue to fully clarify the case.”
Bruno and Dom were murdered in the early hours of June 5, recalls the newspaper ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’. The bodies were found ten days later, on one of the banks of the Itaquaí River, near the community where two of the three defendants lived.