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 an accused in a case involving the R18-million cocaine consignment.
Police discovered it in June last year in a storage facility in Roeland Street, in the Cape Town city centre.
Officers also discovered in the storage unit an AK-47 rifle, an Uzi submachine gun, five 9mm pistols and an assortment of ammunition.
At the time of this crackdown, another accused, Raed Cupido, then employed in the banking industry, was arrested (he remains in custody).
Carelse was detained a while after the Cupido arrest and appeared to have become a State witness in the ongoing case.
‘Gunmen in a gold vehicle’
Western Cape police spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk, without identifying Carelse, confirmed Wednesday’s shooting to Daily Maverick.
Carelse had been outside a premises in the Cape Town suburb of Kensington when a gold-coloured vehicle drove by.
“The same vehicle later returned […] and two unidentified males alighted […] armed with firearms,” Van Wyk said.
“The victim ran into the premises, and the suspects followed him, while shooting at him.
“He was shot multiple times and was later declared deceased on the scene by medical personnel.”
Raed Cupido (40) and Christopher Carelse (37) appeared in the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court for a bail application on 1 August 2025. They faced charges over an R18m cocaine consignment. Carelse was murdered in June 2026. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Theo Jeptha) Van Wyk said the motive for the killing was under investigation.
A judgment, from November last year, delivered in the Western Cape high court, provides further insight into the criminality in which Carelse and Cupido were allegedly involved.
The judgment relates to an appeal that Carelse had lodged to be freed from custody.
He failed in that appeal, but his murder now makes it clear that he was later released from detention.
‘Undiluted cocaine’ and ‘international cartels’
According to the high court judgment, the investigating officer in the case said that the R18-million-worth of cocaine discovered in the Cape Town storage facility last year was “undiluted and therefore believed to originate from several international drug cartels.”
The investigating officer, who was not named in the judgment, added that “it is rare to discover such pure cocaine as the drug would usually undergo several stages of being ‘cut’ and mixed with other substances before distribution and sale”.
Police discovered cocaine worth R18m in a storage facility in Cape Town’s city centre in June 2025. One of the suspects arrested in this case was murdered in June 2026. (Photo: SAPS) He had deduced that Cupido and Carelse were “so-called ‘first-receivers’ of the cocaine as it is smuggled into South Africa by international drug cartels”.
Some of the firearms seized in this case had been stolen in Gauteng.
According to the court judgment, the investigating officer said that three of the recovered firearms “were stolen during a business robbery in Boksburg in 2019”.
In February that year, TimesLive reported that an arms and ammunition shop had been targeted and around 100 firearms were stolen.
‘Increased level of destruction’
According to the judgment in Carelse’s failed bail appeal, the investigating officer said that the three firearms in the storage unit were linked to the “same robbery” in which “69 other firearms were also taken”.
Four of the firearms discovered in the police swoop on the Cape Town storage facility were also “not registered on the firearm system of South Africa”.
Guns and ammunition were among the items seized when police discovered cocaine worth R18m in a storage facility in Cape Town in June 2025. A suspect who turned State witness in the case was subsequently murdered. (Photo: SAPS) The investigating officer said: “At this stage, it is u…
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