SERIES | ‘Cape of Cocaine’

PODCAST | ‘Cape of Cocaine’ (episode 4): 'go to prison, meet nice guys, become a nice guy'

In February 2018 assassins murdered Bulgarian couple Angelo Dimov and Nessie Peeva in their home in the Cape Town suburb of Bergvliet.

There was more to Dimov and Peeva than their friends in the city's southern suburbs knew. It was not a house burglary gone wrong; it was allegedly a hit ordered by a British cocaine dealer who felt he had been double-crossed.

PODCAST | ‘Cape of Cocaine’ (episode 3): How a drug start-up bloomed into a cocaine empire

In February 2014 Hawks W/O Johan Combrinck received a tip-off through Interpol that Bulgarian men were constructing a large drug lab in a mansion in the Cape Town suburb of Durbanville.

On the evening of February 24, Combrinck parked his car opposite the house to conduct a stakeout.

The smell of sulphur hung in the air, a sign to Combrinck of the presence of chemicals used for processing drugs.

PODCAST | ‘Cape of Cocaine’ (episode 2): Ghost ships

Out there with the legendary Flying Dutchman is a fleet of “ghost ships” trafficking cocaine from South America to destinations around the globe. 

They are invisible to satellites and tracking systems and make lonely voyages undetected, sometimes across rough seas.

The Atlantic Warrior is one of them. She belongs to the Bulgarian mafia and trafficked cocaine from Brazil to Saldanha Bay off South Africa’s West Coast.

PODCAST | ‘Cape of Cocaine’ (episode 1): How Saldanha Bay sting operation uncovered Bulgarian mafia’s operation

On March 1 2021 the Windward, a Bulgarian mafia cocaine ship, was three days behind schedule docking at Saldanha Bay harbour on South Africa’s West Coast.

Bulgarian cocaine fleet manager Asen Ivanov and his Bulgarian associates were waiting, probably worried their Myanmar crew had become lost in thick fog or rough seas.