Brazilian search teams found “apparently human remains” in the Amazonian rainforest where a British journalist was last sighted.
Federal police stated that the “organic material” will be sent to forensic analysis with blood from a suspect’s boat.
After visiting the riverside community of Sao Gabriel, fisherman Amarildo Da Costa, Dom Phillips, a journalist, and Bruno Pereira, a travel companion, were reported missing.
Brazilian Judge has placed Mr Costa under arrest for illegal ammunition possession. Police are investigating whether he was involved in the disappearance.
According to police, Mr. Costa, also known as Pelado in the locality, was among the last to see Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira.
The Reuters news agency was told by detectives that they are focusing their attention on “poachers” and “illegal fisherman in this area”. They often clashed frequently with Mr Pereira, a senior official at Funai, the government’s indigenous agency, which had organized patrols of the local reservation.
His lawyers and his family insist that Mr Costa fished legal on the river, and deny that he played any part in the men’s disappearance.
Witnesses claim that they last saw Phillips on Sunday, a freelance journalist who had previously written for The Guardian or The Washington Post.
Two men were reporting from the remote jungle bordering Peru and Colombia, which is home to the largest concentration of uncontacted indigenous people in the world.
This wild and lawless area has attracted illegal loggers and miners, as well as cocaine-smuggling gangs.
According to The Guardian, Mr Pereira received threats from miners in the region.
The disappearance of the pair has drawn attention from around the world due to Brazilian icons like Pele, soccer’s greatest player, and Caetano Veloso, who joined politicians, environmentalists, and human rights activists to urge President Jair Bolsonaro, to intensify his search for them.
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