The “organic material” is being sent for forensic analysis, federal police said, along with blood found on a suspect’s boat. Journalist Dom Phillips and travel companion, indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, disappeared after visiting the riverside community of Sao Gabriel fisherman Amarildo da Costa. A Brazilian judge has ordered Mr Costa, accused of illegally possessing limited ammunition, to be monitored for 30 days, while police are investigating whether he may be involved in the disappearance. Image: Search teams are searching for the missing couple along the Itacoai River Police said Costa, known locally as Pelando, was one of the last people to see Phillips and Pereira. Detectives told Reuters news agency they were focusing on “poachers and illegal fishermen in the area” as they often clashed with Mr Pereira, who, as a senior Funai government official, had organized local patrols. Lawyers and Mr Costa’s family say he fished legally in the river and denied any involvement in the men’s disappearance. Witnesses say they last saw Mr Phillips, a freelance reporter who wrote for The Guardian and the Washington Post, on Sunday. The two men were on a reference trip to the remote jungle region on the border between Peru and Colombia, which hosts the largest number of non-contact indigenous peoples. The wild and illegal area has lured cocaine smuggling gangs, along with illegal loggers, miners and hunters. The Guardian reported that Mr Pereira had received a number of threats from loggers and miners in the area. The couple’s disappearance has attracted worldwide attention, in part because of Brazilian icons, such as football great Pele to singer Caetano Veloso, who unites politicians, environmentalists and human rights activists, urging President Bolson to call on President
