Human remains discovered in hunt for a missing British journalist in Amazon

• British journalist went missing in the Amazon while investigating ‘rainforest mafia’ operations.
• Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira have been missing since Sunday morning.
• They vanished from a remote region of the rainforest in a remote spot near the Peruvian-Colombian border.

Hopes for a British journalist who went missing in the Amazon while investigating ‘rainforest mafia’ operations are diminishing.

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, an indigenous official with whom he was working, have been missing since Sunday morning.

They vanished from a remote region of the rainforest in a remote spot near the Peruvian-Colombian border.

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Police have acknowledged that they are looking into possible human remains discovered near Atalaia do Norte’s port on the Itaquai River.

The couple was supposed to return to the area by boat, but they never did.

Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira were last seen in the Javari Valley, Brazil’s second-largest indigenous territory, in the Sao Rafael settlement.

Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, popularly known as Pelado, a fisherman, has been arrested by Brazilian authorities.

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He was arrested on gun charges before being charged with murder, and blood samples found in his boat have been transferred to a lab for forensic investigation, according to investigators.

His family maintains that he is innocent, denies that he was fishing illegally, and claims that he was tortured to extract a confession in a case that has attracted international attention.

Authorities in Brazil have been accused of taking too long to react to demands for a comprehensive search.

Mr. Phillips’ wife made a heartbreaking video appeal to the government, pleading for greater resources to be allocated to the effort.

Mr. Phillips, 57, has been reporting from Brazil for almost a decade and is currently working on a book about Amazon conservation.

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