Peter Blake killer captured

(February 15, 2018) – One of the fugitive killers of record-breaking yachtsman Sir Peter Blake has been captured by police after more than 15 years on the run.

Jose Irandir Cardoso was arrested after military police who intercepted him at a routine stop on the Brazilian island of Marajo found he was carrying his brother’s ID and discovered his true identity after checking his fingerprints at a local station.

Cardoso, one of the Amazon pirates jailed over the December 5 2001 killing of Kiwi hero Blake, vanished after being sentenced to 32 years in prison.

Local reports said he had been on the run for 16 years.

Last night he was being held at a prison in Breves on Marajo, a large river island bordered by the mouth of the Amazon river in northern Brazil, after being paraded in front of local media by police who captured him.

It is not clear how Jose Irandir Cardoso, pictured centre, had been on the run for so long after being found guilty of armed robbery and his involvement in the killing of Kiwi sailor Sir Peter Blake.

The violent death of Sir Peter Blake, the world’s most famous sailor at the time, had international repercussions.

The 53-year-old, knighted in 1995, was monitoring global warming and pollution on the Amazon for the United Nations when his boat called Seamaster was attacked by armed robbers wearing balaclavas and crash helmets.

Blake was fatally shot in the back by one of the assailants after a rifle he had used to defend himself and his crew malfunctioned.

The attackers fled with an outboard motor and some watches after injuring two other crew members with knives.

Ricardo Colares Tavares, the man who shot the Kiwi sailor dead, was later sentenced to 37 years in prison.

Jose Irandir Cardoso, found guilty of armed robbery leading to death along with five accomplices from a gang called the Water Rats, was jailed for 32 years.

It was not immediately clear today how Cardoso went on the run, although it is believed he may have vanished after being allowed to sleep at home under strict house arrest conditions.

Police confirmed only that he had been a fugitive from the Amapa State Penitentiary Service and he had been held around 11pm local time on Tuesday (Feb 13) after trying to pass himself off as his brother Sergio Roberto Colares Cardoso.

Sir Peter won the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race and held the Jules Verne Trophy from 1994 to 1997 by setting the fastest time around the world as co-skipper of ENZA New Zealand. He also led his country to successive victories in the America’s Cup.

He was appointed as a goodwill ambassador of the UN’s environment programme five months before his death.

Sir Peter Blake was shot to death in the Amazon River in 2001.

His daughter Sarah Jane was among the 14 crew that set out on the Omega-sponsored research expedition that ended in tragedy.

He was buried at Warblington churchyard near Emsworth in Hampshire, the small town where he and his wife Pippa raised their two children.

Helen Clark, New Zealand Prime Minister at the time, called Blake a ‘living legend’ after his death.

His headstone bears the words of John Masefield’s famous poem Sea-Fever poem: ‘I must down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’

Source: The Daily Mail