Brazil’s federal police said on Monday that reports that the bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira had been found in the Amazon rainforest were not correct. Police said in a statement that only biological material and belongings of the missing men had been found so far, as previously announced. Local news outlet G1 had reported earlier in the day, quoting Phillips’ wife, that the two men had been found dead. A British newspaper had also said on Monday that search teams had found two bodies in the rainforest, citing a relative of the British journalist briefed by a Brazilian diplomat. Brazil’s ambassador in London told Paul Sherwood, Phillips’s brother-in-law, that authorities were working to identify the two bodies, which had been found tied to a tree near the river, according to The Guardian , to which Phillips often contributed. However, a spokesman for indigenous association UNIVAJA told Reuters on Monday that search teams had not found bodies. “I’ve spoken with the team in the field and it’s not true,” said Eliesio Marubo, a lawyer for UNIVAJA, which has organised search teams in the hunt for the missing men. “The search goes on.” On Sunday, police said search teams had found the belongings of freelance reporter Dom Phillips, 57, and Bruno Pereira, 41, a former official at federal indigenous agency Funai, in a creek off the river where they were last seen on June 5. Items found were said to include a health identification card in Pereira’s name, a backpack with clothes belonging to Phillips, and the boots of both men. Witnesses have said they saw Pereira and Phillips, who had also written for The Washington Post, travelling down the river on June 5. The two men were on a reporting trip in the remote jungle area near the border with Peru and Colombia that is home to the world’s largest number of uncontacted indigenous people. The wild and lawless region has lured cocaine-smuggling gangs, along with illegal loggers, miners and hunters. News of the pair’s disappearance resonated globally and environmentalists and human rights activists had urged Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to step up the search. Bolsonaro, who last year faced tough questioning from Phillips at news conferences about weakening environmental law enforcement in Brazil, said last week that the two men “were on an adventure that is not recommended” and suggested that they could have been executed. Brazil police open criminal probe amid search for British journalist in Amazon State police detectives involved in the investigation told Reuters they are focusing on poachers and illegal fisherman in the area, who clashed often with Pereira as he organised indigenous patrols of the local reservation. Police have arrested a fisherman, Amarildo da Costa, known as “Pelado,” on a weapons charge and were keeping him in custody as they investigate whether he is involved in the men’s deaths. They earlier reported finding traces of blood in his boat. The suspect denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get a confession, his family told the Associated Press. Last week, officers found organic matter of apparent human origin in the river. The materials were being analysed. The fire department previously told local media that personal effects possibly belonging to the missing men had been found “near the house” of the fisherman, who witnesses say pursued the men upriver. Brazil police open criminal probe amid search for British journalist in Amazon Sunday’s finding of items belonging to the men came just hours after friends and relatives held a vigil on a Rio de Janeiro beach. “At first we had a crazy faith that they had noticed some danger and had hidden in the jungle,” said Maria Lucia Farias, 78. “Now, not any more.” In a statement posted online and reported by The Guardian , a British newspaper to which Phillips contributed, his mother-in-law said: “They are no longer with us. Mother Nature has snatched them away with a grateful embrace”. She added: “Their souls have joined those of so many others who gave their lives in defence of the rainforest and Indigenous peoples”. Few of those gathered at the beach expressed much hope in the men’s survival. Phillips, who had contributed dozens of reports on the Amazon to The Guardian , had travelled to the Javari Valley while working on a book on environmental protection. Pereira went along as a guide. “We have to know what happened,” said Fabiana Castilho, 47, a friend of Phillips, who wore a T-shirt bearing a photo of the two together. “We want an answer.” Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Associated Press