Illustrative image: Man on rubber duck. (Photo: iStock) | Cargo ship. (Photo: iStock) | Cocaine intercepted in Richards Bay in April 2024. (Photo: SAPS) A web of drug accusations connects a R252-million cocaine consignment retrieved off the Western Cape coast to alleged drug trafficking in Gauteng, where accusations are rife that law enforcers have been colluding with traffickers.
The coastal case hinges on cocaine that was intercepted on land in Still Bay in July 2024 after it was apparently retrieved from the sea.
Daily Maverick has previously reported how traffickers from other countries sometimes partner with local gang bosses who send members in boats from coastal hubs to retrieve drug consignments offloaded from ships.
Sometimes, retrievals are outsourced to individuals simply desperate for money and not linked to gangs.
The Still Bay case experienced a major development last week when it emerged that one of the accused – Alan Bushby of Midrand in Gauteng – entered a plea and accepted a sentencing deal.
He was convicted for dealing in drugs that were brought into this country from international waters along Still Bay and sentenced to an effective 10 years in jail.
Bushby also made harrowing allegations about a murder at sea – an unidentified individual was apparently shot, and his body dumped overboard.
Daily Maverick has established two others facing charges in this case were arrested in 2025 in connection with suspected drug trafficking in Gauteng.
Suspects across SA
The arrests in the Still Bay case did not happen simultaneously, but were spread out and involved individuals residing across the country.
According to the State, aside from Bushy, the other accused in the case are:
- Renaldo Beukes (25) and Dicky Johan Benzien (50) of Hermanus (a seaside town in Western Cape);
- Mathew Fourie (23) of Durban (KwaZulu-Natal);
- Jordan Cullingworth (29) of Fourways (Gauteng);
- Nemanja Vuckovic (31) of Amamzimtoti (KwaZulu-Natal), who may be from Serbia originally;
- Marko Ninc (also spelled Minic) (41), who may be from Russia or Serbia and whose address may not be known to the State;
- Josip Ivanovic (39) of Sandton (Gauteng), but originally from another country, because he, Ninc and Vuckovic also face charges for allegedly having been in South Africa illegally.
#sapsHAWKS Western Cape: #Hawks' South African Narcotics Enforcement Bureau (SANEB) team based in George arrested a third additional suspect (39) on 11/02 on charges of dealing in drugs after the execution of a warrant of arrest. The suspect was arrested in Sandton,… pic.twitter.com/TW4Ho3QaaA
— SA Police Service 🇿🇦 (@SAPoliceService) February 12, 2025
Bushby is set to testify against them in this case, which is scheduled to resume at the end of August. Their full versions of events may become clearer as court hearings proceed.
Fourie and Vuckovic, meanwhile, were detained in another matter after the July 2024 cocaine interception in Still Bay.
They were arrested in Gauteng, which shifts aspects of the Still Bay case closer to South Africa’s law enforcement scandal.
‘Big Five base’ – Gauteng
In July last year, KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi alleged that a drug cartel, later identified as the Big Five, is headquartered in Gauteng and that it has infiltrated the criminal justice sector and politics.
This is the crux of South Africa’s unprecedented law enforcement scandal.
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is investigating the cartel infiltration accusations and has recently heard from several police witnesses who detailed how colleagues, by intent or incompetence, thwarted global trafficking investigations.
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_600726_895625_636433.jpg "KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at the Parliament’s ad hoc committee, which is investigating his accusations a drug cartel has infiltrated the criminal justice system. (Photo: Brenton Geach / Gallo Image)")
Back to Fourie and Vuckovic.
About seven months after the Still Bay case started developing, Fourie and Vuckovic were arrested in Gauteng in March 2025, with the Hawks saying R1-million worth of cocaine was also seized.
While it was not clear exactly what happened in this case, Daily Maverick understands that Fourie and Vuckovic distanced themselves from accusations of criminality.
According to a news article in The Citizen after their arrests, the Hawks had been following up “on intelligence received about the transportation and distribution of cocaine from KwaZulu-Natal into Gauteng, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni”.
The route – from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng – happens to be the same one that police officers have alleged is used by the Big Five when transporting drugs initially shipped to Durban. (This is not to suggest Fourie and Vuckovic are part of the Big Five.)
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_608584_446258.jpg "Gauteng Hawks head Ebrahim Kadwa appears in the Kempton Park Magistrates’ Court on 11 May 2026 in a case relating to illicit precious metal accusations. (Photo: Gallo Images/OJ Koloti)")
The Citizen article said that the head of the Hawks in Gauteng, Major-General Ebrahim Kadwa, had commended the team that carried out the two arrests and seized cocaine.
Kadwa was quoted as saying: “The continued partnership between law enforcement and the public is vital in fighting crime.”
Last month, he and a colleague, senior Crime Intelligence officer Feroz Khan, were arrested in a case relating to illicit precious metals.
Khan is also facing scrutiny over events linked to the drug infiltration scandal, including a 2021 cocaine interception in a Johannesburg industrial area, and is meant to testify before the Madlanga Commission next month.
As for Fourie and Vuckovic, the Gauteng arrest matter aside, they are now among those headed for trial in the Still Bay cocaine case.
‘Quick money’
Details of what allegedly happened at sea are contained in Bushby’s plea agreement, about which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in the Western Cape issued a statement.
According to the statement, an individual, Mathew Smith, had approached Bushby in July 2024 and asked if he was “interested in making quick money by helping to recover cocaine from the sea”.
Bushby was told about a ship that would drop off 100kg of cocaine in international waters off Still Bay. He would have to help get it back ashore.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/04-Cocaine-worth-R252-million-was-seized-in-Still-Bay-in-the-Western-Cape-on-19-July-2024.-Two-suspects-one-from-Gauteng-and-another-from-Russia-were-arrested.-Picture-SAPS.jpg "The cocaine worth R252-million that was seized in Still Bay in Western Cape on 19 July 2024. (Photo: SAPS)")
Bushby needed money to start a new business in Namibia – Desert Adventures – so he agreed to go along with the cocaine plan.
“Although he was not told how much he would be paid, he was given the impression that the payment would be substantial. He was instructed to board a rubber duck at 5am on 18 July 2024 with a group of people waiting for him at the Still Bay Harbour,” the NPA statement said.
Bushby appears to have been in Namibia at the time and travelled from there to South Africa.
His girlfriend, from Namibia and unaware of the cocaine retrieval plan, accompanied him, and he told her they would visit this country as tourists because she was keen to see the Western Cape.
(In terms of crime, the province is widely viewed as the capital of gang violence in South Africa.)
A fishy ‘fishing trip’
According to the NPA and his plea deal, Bushby said he was going on a fishing trip on 18 July 2024 and planned to be back the next day.
He asked his girlfriend to drop him off at the harbour in Still Bay and told her that she and Smith, who he said was “an old friend needing a lift”, could explore the area while he was fishing.
On 18 July 2024, he was dropped off at the harbour, and others, including those who would later become his co-accused, were also there.
Ivanovic appeared to be in charge and provided Beukes with a satellite phone, saying they would receive coordinates to retrieve the cocaine.
“Bushby was told that his role would be to help lift the shipment from the water, secure it, and transport it back to the harbour,” the NPA’s statement said.
Beukes received different coordinates and was later instructed to return to the harbour to collect another man and fuel.
This man also had a satellite phone.
‘Shot and thrown overboard’
“The group later located the ship. They flashed their torches toward it and received a response. The drugs were subsequently dropped into the sea and recovered,” the NPA statement said.
“Shortly after the shipment had been secured, Ninc received a call, and the group was instructed to remain at sea until further notice.”
They were eventually told they could return to the harbour, and while on the way there, “Bushby heard a loud bang”.
The NPA statement continued: “He then saw Ninc, who had been seated next to the last man to board the rubber duck, holding a firearm, while the unidentified man lay dead.
“According to Bushby, Ninc, speaking in broken English, pointed at Beukes, Benzien and the others on board and said, ‘You good, you are good, you good’.
“He then pointed at the deceased and said, ‘He is not good’. Ninc allegedly threw the deceased’s body overboard, after which Beukes and Benzien cleaned blood from the boat.”
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Peter-Jaggers.jpg "Suspected Terrible Josters gang leader Peter Jaggers is believed to have been murdered after a cocaine consignment was not retrieved along the Western Cape's coast as planned. (Photo: Facebook)")
Bushby had feared he was next.
The group reached the harbour on the evening of 19 July 2024.
Bushby was tasked with driving a vehicle towing a boat trailer, but police intercepted it.
The officers discovered 14 bags containing about 400 bricks of cocaine.
Bushby and Ninc ran away, but police officers tracked and arrested them later that evening.
As for Mathew Smith, the man who allegedly asked Bushby to help retrieve the cocaine, Bushby “later learned that Smith had died in what was believed to be a suicide”.
Gangsterism at sea
In another matter with suspected ties to drug trafficking at sea, suspected Terrible Josters gang boss Peter Jaggers and his associate William Petersen, of Cape Town, were reportedly kidnapped in Gauteng in 2024.
Their bodies were later found bound 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’s coast could not be accounted for.
No arrests have been publicised in the Jaggers and Petersen case.
The Still Bay case, meanwhile, started developing about three weeks after Jaggers and Petersen went missing in Gauteng.
The Hawks has previously told Daily Maverick that the two cases are not linked. DM