‘Transnational criminal org’ mastermind behind murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira: Brazil police

A “transnational criminal organisation” has been declared as the mastermind of the murders of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert.

Dom Phillips (57) and Bruno Pereira (41) were shot dead in Amazon while returning from a reporting trip to the remote Javari Valley region on June 5, 2022.

Phillips travelled to the region to report on the Indigenous patrol teams Pereira had helped create to protect the Javari Valley Indigenous territory from illegal fishers and mining groups.

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Three local fishermen were arrested and are currently awaiting a possible jury trial on suspicion.

On Sunday night, the Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo reported that federal police had formally charged two more men over the murders.

They are - Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, the alleged leader of a transnational illegal fishing network that operated in the tri-border region between Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

And, Jânio Freitas de Souza, an angler who was allegedly one of Silva Villar’s henchmen. He is said to have been directly involved with the murders of Phillips and Pereira in Itaquaí River.

Silva Villar, who is known by the nickname Colombia, has been charged with ordering the murders and the concealment of the bodies of the victims. Whereas, Souza has been charged with participation in both crimes.

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According to the six-page federal police indictment, a police probe revealed that Silva Villar and Souza were in constant contact in the days before and after last year’s crime, the Guardian reported.

The evidence gathered by the police further showed that the movements of “Bruno and Dom were being monitored by the criminal organisation” in the days leading up to the crime.

According to the police, Villar, who holds Brazilian, Colombian and Peruvian citizenship, is the chief of an armed illegal fishing syndicate which illegally extracted fish from protected Indigenous lands in Brazil before selling them in towns across the border in Colombia and Peru.

Souza is described as Villar’s “right-hand man” in São Rafael, the riverside village from which Phillips and Pereira set off by boat minutes before they were ambushed and shot.

It comes as supporters and well-wishers of Phillips and Pereira gathered in Brazil and the UK to mark their death anniversary. Events are expected to be held in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, where Pereira once worked for the Indigenous agency, Funai, and on Rio’s Copacabana beach, where Phillips often went paddleboarding while living in the seaside city.

(With inputs from agencies)

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