South Western Division police made more searches throughout the forested areas off Quinam Road, Siparia, in the hope of finding missing Brazilian expatriate Odair Bezerra Lins.
Investigators said they widened the search area and used tracker dogs, but were unsuccessful in finding him. Lins, 55, an electrician with Brazilian firm, Construtora OAS, went missing on the morning of June 8 when he went to turn on an electrical pump along Mosquito Creek, South Oropouche, where work on the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension Project has stalled.
His silver Mazda BT-50 pick-up truck was found abandoned in a deserted area by patrolling South Western Division Task Force officers that night. There was blood on the handle and samples were sent to the Forensic Science Centre for a DNA analysis to determine whether the blood belonged to Lins. Up to yesterday, the results were still outstanding.
Police said it is still a search and recovery mission and they are following all leads they currently have. Lins stayed in an apartment on Coney Street, Gulf View, La Romaine. There was speculation that he could have been targeted because of his company's heated pay dispute with its retrenched workforce as several other expatriates told the T&T Guardian they were previously threatened by the workers.
Last March, Construtora OAS fired 860 bi-monthly paid workers as its parent company, Grupos OAS struggled financially. Grupos OAS in Brazil filed for bankruptcy last year after its access to financing was severely restricted by a corruption investigation at Brazilian state-owned oil company, Petrobras.
There was an agreement between Construtora OAS and the workers' representative, the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union (OWTU), to have severance and outstanding payments paid to the workers before the company leaves the country at end of May. However, the workers are still waiting for payments, which resulted in several fiery protests.
Although investigators have not ruled out this theory, they said there has been no evidence to suggest that the outstanding wage dispute had anything to do with Lins' disappearance.
A Brazilian news agency quoted Lins’ wife as saying that her husband had been receiving threats. She said he used to return home every four months.