American arrested after trying to reach protected, remote tribe off Indian coast

NEW DELHI— Indian police have arrested a 24-year-old American YouTuber who visited an off-limits island in the Indian Ocean and left an offering of a Diet Coke can and a coconut in an attempt to make contact with an isolated tribe known for attacking intruders.

Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, from Scottsdale, Arizona, was arrested on March 31, two days after he set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel Island — part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands — in a bid to meet people from the reclusive Sentinelese tribe, police said.

A local court last week sent Polyakov to 14 days of judicial custody, and he is set to appear again in court on April 17.

The charges carry a possible sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine. Indian authorities said they had informed the U.S. Embassy about the case.

Visitors are banned from traveling within 3 miles of the island, whose population has been isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years.

The inhabitants use spears, bows, and arrows to hunt the animals that roam the small, heavily forested island. Deeply suspicious of outsiders, they attack anyone who lands on their beaches.

“The Department has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News.

“We are aware of reports of the detention of a U.S. citizen in India. We take our commitment to assist U.S. citizens abroad seriously and are monitoring the situation.”

In 2018, an American missionary who landed illegally on the beach was killed by North Sentinel islanders who apparently shot him with arrows and then buried his body on the beach.

In 2006, the Sentinelese killed two fishermen who had accidentally landed on the shore.

Indian officials have limited contact with rare “gift-giving” encounters, with small teams of officials and scientists leaving coconuts and bananas for the islanders.

Indian ships also monitor the waters around the island, trying to ensure outsiders do not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeatedly made clear they want to be left alone.

Police said Polyakov was guided by GPS navigation during his journey and surveyed the island with binoculars before landing. He stayed on the beach for about an hour, blowing a whistle to attract the islanders’ attention, but he received no response from them.

He later left a can of Diet Coke and a coconut as an offering, made a video on his camera, and collected some sand samples before returning to his boat.

On his return, he was spotted by local fishermen, who informed the authorities. Polyakov was arrested in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago nearly 750 miles east of India’s mainland.

A case was registered against him for violation of Indian laws that prohibit any outsider from interacting with the islanders.

Police said Polyakov had conducted detailed research on sea conditions, tides, and accessibility to the island before starting his journey.

“He planned meticulously over several days to visit the island and make a contact with the Sentinel tribe,” Senior Police Officer Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal said.

In a statement, police said Polyakov’s “actions posed a serious threat to the safety and well-being of the Sentinelese people, whose contact with outsiders is strictly prohibited by the law to protect their indigenous way of life.”

An initial investigation revealed that Polyakov had made two previous attempts to visit the islands, in October last year and January, including in an inflatable kayak.

Police said Polyakov was drawn to the island by his passion for adventure and extreme challenges and was fascinated by the Sentinelese people’s mystique.

Survival International, a group that protects the rights of Indigenous peoples, said Polyakov’s attempted contact with the tribes of North Sentinel was “reckless and idiotic.”

“This person’s actions not only endangered his own life, they put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk,” the group’s director, Caroline Pearce, said in a statement.