Brazil police open criminal probe amid search for British journalist Dom Phillips in Amazon jungle
- British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira went missing deep in the Amazon after receiving threats
- Brazil deploys search teams as speculation swirled on whether the pair could have fallen victims to an accident or foul play
Brazilian police have opened a criminal probe and interviewed at least four witnesses believed to be among the last to have seen a British journalist and an indigenous expert who went missing in a remote and lawless part of the Amazon jungle on Sunday.
Guilherme Torres, the head of the interior department of Amazonas state’s civil police, said that police had opened a criminal investigation and interviewed four witnesses while also seeking to locate the journalist, freelancer Dom Phillips, and his companion Bruno Pereira, a former senior official with federal indigenous agency Funai.
Torres said Pereira had recently received a threatening letter from a local fisherman who police were trying to locate.
He said his colleagues had interviewed two fishermen as witnesses on Monday, with two more quizzed on Tuesday. The first two witnesses had not provided any useful information, and Torres had no details as yet about the second two interviews.
“We are indeed working with the hypothesis that a crime might have occurred, but there is another, much larger possibility, that they’re lost,” Torres said. “Now, our priority is to find them alive, especially in these first hours. In parallel, a criminal probe has been opened to see if there was some crime committed.”
Brazil’s navy and army both dispatched search teams in boats and helicopters to the area, with support from federal and state police.
