Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov has been accused of using an inflatable boat to travel to North Sentinel Island, which is part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
According to police, the 24-year-old arrived on the northeastern side of the island on March 29, staying for about five minutes, blowing a whistle to attract attention from the tribe, but got no response.
A fisherman spotted Polyakov as the YouTuber was leaving the island and reported it to police.
The YouTuber recorded video and collected samples before leaving behind Diet Coke and coconuts before leaving the island, Kitendra Kumar Meena, head of criminal investigations for the Andaman and Nicobar Police, told CNN.
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.”
Survival International, an organisation that protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples, said Polyakov’s actions were “reckless and idiotic.”
“This person’s actions not only endangered his own life, they put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk. It’s very well known by now that uncontacted peoples have no immunity to common outside diseases like flu or measles, which could completely wipe them out," the group’s director, Caroline Pearce, said in a statement.
All outsiders are banned from travelling within three miles of the island in a bid to protect the native tribe of about 150 people, who have been isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years.
The Sentinelese have made it very clear that they do not want any contact with the outside world.
In 2018, American evangelical Christian missionary John Allen Chau was killed by the Sentinelese after he travelled to the island with a bible.
He was fatally shot with an arrow by a tribesman on the shoreline. His body has never been recovered.
In 2006, two fishermen who had accidentally landed on the shore were killed by the Sentinelese.
In 2004, the tribe shot arrows at a helicopter that was conducting a welfare check after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The Sentinelese are thought to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world.
Indian officials and scientists leave coconuts and bananas for the Islanders on rare occasions.
Indian ships also monitor the waters around the islands to ensure outsiders do not go near the tribe.
