‘Colombian cocaine kidnapping’ — how two bound and cuffed Cape Town men were found killed in Free State

The two bodies were tightly wrapped.

When police removed the material and chains wound around them, they saw several tattoos on each and that the hands of both were cuffed, while their feet were bound with cable ties.

A tattoo of a cross and fire was visible on the right calf of one of the bodies.

The words “international crook” were tattooed on the back of the second body and pointed to that person’s identity – Peter Jaggers.

Colombia, cocaine, kidnapping

Jaggers, along with William Petersen, both from Cape Town, went missing earlier this year – in July – and suspicions did the rounds they had peeved off Colombian cocaine traffickers who had retaliated.

The overriding suspicions were that Jaggers and Petersen were linked to a major cocaine consignment that was meant to be fetched from Colombian traffickers off the Cape Town coast earlier this year – but that this plan did not go as intended and instead led to a sea rescue – of sorts.

Read more: Suspected 28s gang and cocaine ties to kidnapping case among SA’s latest abduction developments

Jaggers and Petersen were allegedly kidnapped after flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg in a situation involving the Colombian cocaine.

R50-million was apparently demanded for their release.

Daily Maverick reported in July that the kidnapping case relating to Jaggers and Petersen was registered in Bishop Lavis, a suburb in Cape Town, of which parts are known as 28s gang hotspots.

At that stage, though, Daily Maverick had intentionally not published their names as it was unclear if doing so would jeopardise anyone’s safety.

Because police have not publicised nor confirmed fuller details about this case, it has become saturated in various suspicions and countering ones involving local and international criminality.

Some with ties to policing have even, at some point, informally questioned whether the July kidnapping was legitimate or perhaps a ruse to throw off those after Jaggers and Petersen.

Bodies bound in a river

Whatever the case, their bodies were discovered after 2pm on Friday, 11 October 2024, in the Klip River in Oranjeville in the Free State.

A passerby first noticed one body at a bridge.

The police diving unit was dispatched to the scene and members discovered the second body about a metre from the first.

@mr_zulu_zaMy brother my friend until we meet again fly high ?️?️?️?️♬ If I Would Have Known - Kyle Hume

Murder cases were opened at the Oranjeville police station.

On Wednesday, 16 October 2024, Free State police spokesperson Captain Loraine Earle confirmed that the two bodies had officially been identified as Jaggers and Petersen.

“Their families positively identified the two men,” she said.

“They were allegedly kidnapped and the investigation is being dealt with by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation in Gauteng.”

Earle urged anyone with information about the case to contact Detective Colonel Ben Bolsiek on 082 466 8530, Crimeline on 08600 10111, or provide an anonymous tip-off on the MySaps App.

Cuffed and tattooed

On Tuesday, in an earlier statement, Earle had said the bodies were found in a “bad state of decomposition”.

“A preliminary investigation discovered that the victims were handcuffed … and their feet fastened with cable ties,” she said.

According to Earle, one body had several tattoos and had no teeth.

Aside from the cross with fire tattooed on the right calf, the name and date “Billie 08/06/2016” was on its back. 

The second body had teeth, and tattoos including a flame on the left leg and the words “international crook” on its back.

Daily Maverick established that Jaggers had a tattoo with those words on his back.

Astonishing suspicions underpin the discovery of the two bodies.

Who is Peter Jaggers?

Jaggers is a familiar name in Cape Town crime circles.

A Western Cape High Court judgment from 2019, which references an applicant sharing Petersen’s name, suggests he too had cropped up in drug-dealing accusations.

On the business side of things, Jaggers was the founder of a minstrel group rooted in Cape Town’s Netreg (sometimes referred to as Golden Gate).

His name, based on a company search, was linked to various businesses, one related to residents and Golden Gate.



In 2016, a post on a Facebook page linked to policing in the Cape Town suburb of Bishop Lavis said that a suspect with possible ties to the 28s gang, “under the leadership of Peter Jaggers”, was arrested with an Uzi submachine gun and ammunition.

Jaggers was suspected of being a leader of a gang linked to the 28s, the Terrible Josters.

It once emerged in a court case that the Terrible Josters may have a membership of around 10,000.

The Terrible Josters

Previously the most high-profile suspected leader of the Terrible Josters was Ernest Solomon, who was also known as Ernie Lastig.

Solomon’s name was linked to the perlemoen (abalone) trade and other suspected crimes, including drug-related ones.

He was murdered in Gauteng in 2020 roughly six months after he was wounded in a shooting in the Western Cape fishing village of Hawston.

Read more: Another killing rocks South Africa’s ganglands – the ‘inevitable’ end of Ernie Lastig

Parts of Hawston are known as Terrible Josters strongholds. 

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime previously found that “Hawston has become increasingly involved in Cape Town’s broader drug market thanks to its central role in the illegal abalone trade, on which its economy is now to some degree reliant.”

Of the Terrible Josters, it said: “This gang is deeply involved in the drug trade in Cape Town and in the transnational trade in abalone, a seafood highly valued in China.”

In a Western Cape High Court judgment from 2018, against accused individuals including Solomon’s son Horatio, a figure was referenced simply as Jaggers.

The judgment said a witness had identified “Jaggers” as the Terrible Josters leader in an area of Cape Town known as Kreefgat and in the suburb of Bonteheuwel.

The sea rescue

Meanwhile, the Jaggers and Petersen suspicions saga stretches offshore.

On 25 March this year, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) issued a statement about six fishermen who were missing at sea.

They had apparently been fishing off the southwest of Cape Point.

The fishermen were believed to be from Hout Bay and Hawston.

According to the NSRI, they were found unharmed on the “deep sea off Cape Point” the following day.

Daily Maverick understands one of the men NSRI members had found unharmed is related to Jaggers.

A video of the rescued men leaving what appears to be an NSRI facility shows someone throwing a towel over one of their heads and briskly leading that person away with his face covered.

Mayco member for safety and security JP Smith, though, previously said this sea rescue may have been a “cover-up” for the boat to pick up a cocaine shipment.

“Known as the Southern route, cartels use passing container ships to drop off large drug shipments, left floating in barrels and with the GPS pin then sent to local gangs,” he said.

The R1bn cocaine and Colombia claims

This is the most tenuous part of the saga so far because the alleged evidence – millions of rands worth of cocaine, possibly even R1-billion worth – seems to be missing in action.

Details from various sources with ties to policing go along these lines — that a group was meant to have retrieved a consignment of cocaine at sea, off Cape Town’s coast, and brought it to land.

News24’s Tankiso Makhetha reported that “a well-placed insider [said] Jaggers’ gang allegedly acted as intermediaries between the Colombians and Bulgarians and their role was to ensure the cocaine made its way from South America and into the hands of the eastern European syndicate.”

Various sources, though, have told Daily Maverick that the cocaine was apparently lost at sea.

Another theory is that there were attempts, one possibly successful, to steal the cocaine.

In any event, the apparent fate of the cocaine is what is alleged to have peeved off its owners and led to Jaggers and Petersen being kidnapped.

‘We don’t forgive you’

This is where voice notes crop up. (Daily Maverick has decided not to publish them in case this affects the investigation)

The authenticity of the clips has not been confirmed, but these were apparently sent to those linked to Jaggers.

In one, a man with a thick accent says: “Hey, we’re not playing, we’re not playing… you guys have 24 hours to return the stuff, or we will come after your families, you know. 

“We’re not playing, we’re fucking gangsters… from Colombia… We cartel, we don’t forgive you.”

It is not unrealistic for cocaine from Colombia to end up in South Africa.

#sapsHAWKS KwaZulu-Natal: R15 Million worth of cocaine seized at Richards Bay Port of Entry. A search was conducted upon arrival of the vessel and during the search blocks of cocaine were found. No arrest has been made at this stage operation continues. #DrugsOffTheStreets ME… pic.twitter.com/cy40p9qpsh

— SA Police Service ?? (@SAPoliceService) April 23, 2024

In April this year, police announced that blocks of cocaine worth R15-million were discovered on “a vessel that was travelling from Colombia to Richards Bay Port of Entry”.

The vessel was meant to be importing iron to this country.

In 2022 a Colombian publication reported that during the previous year, 1,458kg of cocaine destined for this country was intercepted in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, where 204 people were murdered over seven months in clashes between rival groups over control of its ports.

Other drug links between this country and Colombia are detailed in this journalist’s book, Clash of the Cartels: Unmasking the global drug kingpins stalking South Africa.

It also delves into links between this country and others including Serbia and Bulgaria.

‘Serbia/Bulgaria’ 

In the Jaggers saga, a leaked police report said the complainant in the kidnapping case had told officers that Jaggers left his home, presumably in Cape Town, on 30 June 2024.

A few days later, on 3 July, he flew from Cape Town International Airport to OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng.

Once in that province, individuals from Bulgaria and/or Serbia allegedly approached him – the exact wording from the police report is that “he was apparently picked up by foreigners from Bulgaria/Serbia.”

The report said the motive was gang- and drug-related.

Jaggers did not return to his Cape Town home.

Other leaked police information showed that a friend of Jaggers had informed the complainant that a R50-million ransom was being demanded for his release.

Kidnapping, then murder cases

Daily Maverick initially heard about the probability that Jaggers had been kidnapped around Thursday, 4 July.

That coincides with the information that he flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg the day before.

After obtaining further information, Daily Maverick on 5 July asked the Western Cape police about the matter, and provincial spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk confirmed a kidnapping case had been registered at the Bishop Lavis police station.

A few days later, on 8 July, another Western Cape police spokesperson, Warrant Officer Joseph Swartbooi, confirmed to Daily Maverick a kidnapping case had been registered and “the docket will be transferred to the SAPS office where the incident occurred”.

That is in Gauteng where this week, roughly three months after the kidnapping case was registered in the Cape Town suburb of Bishop Lavis, the Hawks are still dealing with the overall investigation into what exactly led up to the murders of Jaggers and Petersen. DM