The Robber Baron Mafias of the Lawless Amazon Rainforest

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last year’s murders of journalist Dom Phillips, and indigenous rights campaigner Bruno Pereira, shocked Brazil and the world. But they were just one violent conclusion to a story of mafias of all stripes—from fish mobs and narcos to KKK-like ranchers and rubber barons—who’ve stalked the remotest corners of the Amazon Rainforest since the turn of the 20th century. Going from gold rushes to the death of famed eco-warrior Chico Mendes, it’s a tale of environmental crime and destruction, plus the growing threat of coca traffickers and urban gangsters, that didn’t just make Phillips’ and Pereira’s deaths a possibility—it made them near-certain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's June 2nd, 2022, and British reporter Don Phillips is nearing the end of a mammoth book
0:06.7	project to record environmental destruction in the bowels of Brazil's Amazon rainforest. Phillips is joined as he often has been
0:14.7	Bribu no Pereira, an activist and passionate defender of indigenous rights in the
0:19.7	Jawari Valley, a supposedly protected tract of forest almost as far from the mega cities of Rio and
0:26.5	Sao Paulo as those cities are from Africa.
0:30.4	It's been a grueling trip, zigzagging along tributaries to meet some of the remotest villages on earth.
0:37.0	But it's not over.
0:38.0	Phillips needs one last set of interviews before he can head to his home in the city of Salvador and they're a long boat ride away.
0:45.0	He and Pereira pack up their stuff and they check out of a browbeaten hotel in Alataya de Nauti,
0:51.0	a tiny town on the Peruvian border. They hop in a motorboat and they
0:55.9	head south along the winding Itakai River, stopping to grab paddles Pereira's promise to
1:00.8	indigenous groups upstream.
1:03.0	They'll be back for a shower and a celebratory beer in three days.
1:07.0	Philip tells the hotel, yeah.
1:09.0	By June 5th, the pair arrive at a stop-off point called Lago de Jiburu, and they grill indigenous people
1:14.9	about the dangers facing their communities, namely fish and ranching matheas that are draining the
1:20.9	area of their natural wealth.
1:22.8	Not to mention a lack of state protection that's opened the door to drug cartels and Rio gangs
1:28.0	like the deadly PCC. It's a perfect storm that's terrified the locals and for very good reason.
1:35.0	Brazil's westernmost states,
1:37.0	Amazonas, Acre and Rondonia,
1:40.0	now have higher murder rates than the country's most desperate urban favelas.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Underworld Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Underworld Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.