An accused in an R18m cocaine case, who recently became a witness for the State, has been murdered in Cape Town in a matter connected with 71 firearms stolen from a Gauteng shop and other weapons not registered in South Africa, indicating international criminality.
A Cape Town killing, linked to a court case involving an R18-million cocaine consignment and firearms from a cache previously stolen in Gauteng, now adds to a list of local murders that appear to be connected to the global drug trade.
Christopher Carelse, 37, who faced accusations relating to the multimillion-rand cocaine consignment, was fatally shot on Wednesday, 17 June 2026.
His killing has sparked more questions among policing sources about the safety of witnesses and exhibits in key drug matters.
Previous cases involving killings and cocaine include:
- That of suspected Terrible Josters gang boss Peter Jaggers and his associate William Petersen, of Cape Town, who were reportedly kidnapped in Gauteng in July 2024. Their bound bodies were later found in a river in the Free State. It is suspected that they were murdered after a cocaine consignment meant to have been retrieved along the Western Cape coast could not be accounted for.
- The fatal shooting of an unidentified man off the Still Bay coast in July 2024, when a group of alleged traffickers was on a boat at sea to retrieve a R252-million cocaine consignment. The man's body was apparently dumped overboard.
As for Carelse, he had initially been...
