Phillips and Pereira are murdered in June 2022. British newspaper journalist Watchman Pereira was on an expedition in the Javare Valley, Brazil, for a book for preservation.
It now appears that the duo has been under surveillance for some time by a criminal organization allegedly involved in poaching. Pereira is said to have quarreled with members of the organization before.
The new suspects are poachers and Robin Villar, who is seen as the leader of the criminal organization. The Brazilian authorities had earlier arrested eight suspects, including Amarildo Costa de Oliveira. He is the prime suspect in the case.
The police traced the new suspects through calls made by Costa de Oliveira to Villar. They had called each other more than four hundred times a year. They did it on the date of the murder and shortly thereafter.