Area where journalist and indigenist disappeared is 2nd with the most inquiries for illegal mining

Tabatinga, a municipality in Amazonas in the triple border region where the English journalist Dom Phillips and the indigenist Bruno Araújo Pereira disappeared, was the second city in which the Federal Police launched the most police investigations (IPL) for illegal mining in the state of Amazonas in the last decade , according to data obtained by the CNN via the Access to Information Law (LAI).

According to the Union of Indigenous Organizations of Vale do Javari (Univaja). Phillips was going to a place called Lago do Jaburu to interview indigenous people, and Pereira accompanied him. According to the entities, the indigenist is the target of threats from loggers and prospectors who try to invade indigenous lands in the region.

In all, the municipality was the site of 18 possible crimes investigated and is only behind Manaus, which had 76 in the same period. Amazonas, in turn, is the third state that registers the most investigations in the north of the country – second region with the most registrations – behind only the Southeast, where Minas Gerais is located, the state with the most investigations.

In Atalaia do Norte (AM), the city to which the journalist and the indigenist were heading when they disappeared, the PF recorded three IPL. The first of these was registered in 2014, the second in 2020 and the last one last year.

Two other municipalities in the region around Atalaia do Norte had records of occurrences by the Federal Police in the period: Benjamin Constant, once in 2015, and São Paulo de Olivença, which had seven records – six in 2013 and one in 2014.

Operations in Amazonas

The Federal Police also reported having organized eight operations to combat illegal miners in the state between 2015 and 2021 – one of them, in 2018, took place in the city of Tabatinga.

Source: CNN Brasil

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