- Brazilian police charge suspected mastermind of murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira in the Amazon in 2022
- The suspect is the alleged leader of a "transnational criminal organization"
- The victims were allegedly targeted because their actions were causing losses for an illegal fishing organization
Brazilian police have charged the suspected mastermind behind the murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira in 2022 in the Amazon rainforest that stirred international attention.
Law enforcement personnel charged the leader of a "transnational criminal organization" for allegedly being behind the murders of the two men one year ago. The British journalist and the Brazilian Indigenous expert were found to have been shot deadon their way back from a reporting trip to the remote Javari Valley region on June 5, 2022.
Murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
Three local fishers were imprisoned and are awaiting a possible jury trial on suspicion of killing the two men. Furthermore, said a former government official who had been assisting Indigenous activists in defending their lands from illegal fishing and mining gangs, as per The Guardian.
Globo, the Brazilian broadcaster TV, revealed on Sunday night that federal police had formally charged two additional individuals over the killings of the men. They were identified as Ruben Dario da Silva Villar and Janio Freitas de Souza.
Villar is the alleged leader of a transnational illegal fishing network that operated in the tri-border region between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The second individual, Souza, is a fisherman believed to have been one of Villar's henchmen along the Itaquai River, where the two men were murdered.
Brazilian federal police charged Villar, who is known as "Colombia," with ordering the murders of Phillips and Pereira as well as the concealment of their bodies after the crime. The second man was charged with participation in both crimes.
The situation comes as Brazilian police indicted the former head of Brazil's Indigenous protection agency. The decision was made over the former official's alleged role in the murder of Phillips, according to BBC.
Charges Against Alleged Mastermind
The Amazon, where the two victims were killed, is a huge region home to roughly 6,300 Indigenous people from more than 20 groups. The area is under threat from illegal loggers, miners, and hunters.
Officials alleged that the former president and former vice-president of Brazil's National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) agency were aware of the risk to the lives of the two men. However, they did not take preventative measures to protect the victims.
In a statement, the force added that the officials would have assumed the risk of the result of their omissions. The remarks suggest that one official, identified as Mr. Xavier's, failed to protect Phillips, and Pereira indirectly allowed the murders of the victims.
Law enforcement personnel also said that Villar planned the killings of Phillips and Pereira because the latter was conducting inspections of illegal fishing operations, which resulted in losses to the mastermind's criminal group. The charges against Villar and three other individuals include double homicide and concealment of corpses, said Inquirer.
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