EXTRACT | 'Hunting with the Hawks' by Graham Coetzer

THE HITMAN, THE AVOCADOS AND THE GREEDY WIFE

Extracts from the South African Police Service transcription, translated from Afrikaans. 

Voice File Number: White River CAS126/03/2017 

— [Video File]

Audio Length: 03:31 

Number of Pages: 5 

Date of Transcript: 12-07-2017 

PAGE 1 Man: Are you going to stop there?

Woman: Yes, I’m going to stop there I want to get avocados, and a few fruits so... 

Man: Good, all right then we’ll do it there because then it can be done behind those stalls.

Woman: OK I’ll get in contact with you as soon as the insurance pays out, then I can get cash...

Man: How long can it take? 

Woman: It should take about a month or two, it doesn’t take that long. 

Man: OK. 

Woman: OK, how much? 

Man: How much did you think? 

Woman: R20,000. 

Man: So that’s right, we’ll see then, because I’ve gotten the photo now of him. 

Woman: Oh, oh yes. 

Man: They sent it to me. 

Woman: Oh, OK. 

Man: Just one shot not two? 

Woman: Make it two. 

Man: We must be sure he’s dead. 

Woman: Yes. 

It’s a conversation that will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. Yet the woman so casually discussing the murder of her husband with the hitman she’d hired sounded like she was enjoying herself. Even happy about it. But to understand this story and the events leading up to this fateful day in 2017, I must take you back to 2013. To a tropical paradise in Mozambique and a small holiday resort. And to the South African man who owned and operated it. “I was doing something I loved doing, you know, diving and launching, taking people out, looking at reefs and corals, beautiful fish, sharks.” Remembering his previous life in Ponta do Ouro, Mozambique, brings a huge smile to Carlos Ferreira’s genial face. 

The Portuguese-born South African is reminiscing while strolling along a beach in Cape Town, where he now lives. He’s dressed in a white golf shirt printed in a palm tree motif. He’s rolled up his black denim pants and is carrying a pair of loafers in his hands. His smile is infectious, and you can’t help but laugh with him when he laughs. “I had a small lodge with a couple of rooms that I used to rent out, so ja, life was good,” he said, gazing out at a clear blue sea. With the cool breeze wafting through his steely grey hair.

The lodge was called Primo Cabanas, and it was a little slice of paradise for the tourists who flocked there, mostly for the diving. Situated on the beach, between palm trees and dense tropical greenery, the brightly decorated rooms and popular bar offered city dwellers the perfect getaway. In 2013, while taking a diving group out on his boat, Carlos first met Maria, the woman who would become his wife. “So she was one of the divers on the boat,” Carlos said. “And it looked like she took a liking to me, and I responded, you know. And we hooked up.”

After a whirlwind romance, the couple were married later that year. In photos from the time, the red-haired Maria, often called Marietjie by her friends, looks happy and healthy. Little did he know that in the years to come, not only would his life with Maria take on a more sour note, it would turn downright deadly. 

Of all the Hawks’ officers I’ve met researching this book, no-one quite put me in mind of James Bond as much as Col Danie Hall. Looking into his background, I quickly realised that this was a man with such an exemplary track record in the police that his stories alone would fill volumes. I’d driven down to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation’s Middelburg offices in Mpumalanga to meet him. Walking down an insipid cream-coloured corridor, I heard footsteps to my right. Dress shoes. Male. Tall. 

“In 2017, I got a call from an informant,” he started the story. “He had information about a woman who lived in Mozambique. She wanted to have her husband murdered and that she was very serious about it.” 

Meanwhile, Carlos had no idea what Maria was up to behind his back. He does recall that their relationship had started taking a turn for the worse just a few months after their whirlwind romance. Things got worse as her drinking, mixed with prescription medications for depression, resulted in an increasingly toxic mess. “One time, I walked into the lounge and I startled her. As she stood up, I saw this huge kitchen knife under her, and I thought but what is this now? Is that for me?” 

He had every right to be suspicious: Maria had previously told Carlos she was in trouble with the South African authorities and had come to Mozambique to lie low. “She says that she was accused of murdering her late husband. I don’t know, it works on your mind, you know.” Maria had told Carlos that she was being falsely accused. Although she was a person of interest to police in her previous husband’s murder, investigators never found enough proof to take the case to court. 

According to Carlos, his relationship wasn’t the only thing in decline. Maria often went on spending sprees, cleaning out his bank accounts with the ATM card he’d given her. Things got so bad financially that he considered closing the business. But Maria scuppered the deal between Carlos and a prospective buyer. “The guy was horrified because she went and spread bad stories about me. How I supposedly slept with my brother and how I sold drugs on the property. I don’t know where she came up with all these things.” When the deal fell through, Carlos confronted Maria. “So she acknowledged that she’d spoilt the deal. But she said ‘I’ll fix up the deal.’ And this is how she got me to go to South Africa, to White River.” 

Maria had again contacted the same informant who’d approached Danie. The colonel continued to give me the rundown. “In 2017, Maria contacted the informant again. And she said, remember what we spoke of last time? Now I want you to murder Carlos.” Maria had asked the informant to play the role of a prospective buyer for the lodge. That made it possible for her to convince Carlos to accompany her to White River,  where the informant lived. The trip was arranged under the auspices of Carlos meeting the buyer. Danie outlined the rest of the plan. “So the informant told me that Maria was looking for a hitman and that she had asked him to act as a middleman.” 

The Hawks obviously couldn’t allow the murder to occur, but they would need as much evidence as possible to put Maria behind bars. Danie’s idea was to use an undercover agent, posing as a hitman, to foil Maria’s plans. Danie had to work quickly. His main concern was that Maria might stumble across someone who would do the job if they couldn’t convince her that their undercover agent was the real deal and capable of doing the job. “So we let the agent make contact with her telephonically. And he told her I’m your man. I’m going to do the job,” he said. 

As organised as ever, Danie had offered to arrange a meeting for me with the agent during my trip to Middelburg. To tell this story, I’ll call him OG. “I played the hitman in this operation. I would have been the one who would have murdered her husband,” he said. “During the initial conversation with her, she told me quite blatantly that she wanted to kill her husband. And she would pay me R20,000, and she wanted it done as soon as possible. 

“Every operation is different, and you must adapt to every one,” OG said. “Your handler, like Col Hall, will give you as much advice as possible, and together you can make many plans. But once you get there, it might be a different game.” During his interactions with Maria, OG gave her several opportunities to back out of her plans. But she was adamant. “She had no sympathy, no remorse. She wanted the deed done. I tried to get her to delay her trip, but she was very pushy. She set the timeline.” 

On Sunday March 19 2017, Danie and OG travelled to White River. “We had organised that there would be a meeting between Maria and our agent in White River. So myself and OG drove down there and waited for her to arrive.” The two Hawks members had arranged to meet at a petrol station. 

“She arrived there,” OG said, “with another woman who was unknown to me at the time in a silver Mercedes-Benz.” In the footage Danie captured, Maria casually strolls up to OG, looking for all the world like just another tourist lazing away a Sunday afternoon in the picturesque town. “She told me she wanted to stop along the road on their way back to Mozambique, where she wanted to buy fruit and veg from the little stalls next to the area’s road.”

White River is a must-see destination for many tourists, and the stalls offer locally sourced produce to eager travellers. “I was supposed to hang around the stalls, and then as soon as I saw Maria and Carlos, I was to shoot Carlos in the head. She’d provided me with their vehicle’s registration number and description. I told her, OK, I’ll be sure I shoot him in the head, and suggested I shoot him twice in the head to be sure he was dead. She agreed; in fact, she was impressed with the conversation we had,” OG said. 

Maria’s devious plan was simple. As the couple travelled back to Mozambique, she would stop off at a specific stall where she wanted to buy some avocados. That’s when OG had to strike in what she wanted to pass off as a hijacking gone wrong.

“I thought to myself, this woman is having her husband murdered, and she’s talking about avocados that she wants to buy for tonight. And then tonight she’s planning on eating those avocados. And I wondered how you go and sit and eat something that you bought while your husband was lying there next to you and bleeding to death on the tar road.

“At one stage, she asked me if I’m not from the police,” OG said. “And I just said no, and then she just laughed about it.” Danie later gave me a screenshot, taken from OG’s camera during his conversation with Maria. It’s a close-up of Maria’s face. She is grinning from ear to ear. It looks as though she’s just won the lottery. “She wasn’t nervous or anything. She never thought twice about what she was saying. She just wanted me to ensure her husband would be shot to death.” 

OG’s camera also captured the moment Maria handed him R500 in cash. She’d told him she could only pay him the full R20 000 once she could claim from her husband’s life insurance. The R500 was to pay for his travelling expenses because he’d told her he’d come from Johannesburg. It was another important piece of evidence for the police to gather all pieces of the puzzle that would prove her intent. "So I had a prearranged signal with OG to let me know that the negotiation with her had been completed. On that day ,I was wearing civilian clothes, but I was wearing a golf shirt and cap with our Hawks’ logo embroidered onto them. And as she walked away, I caught up to her and called out Maria! And she turned around quite surprised, and I told her the game was over,’ Danie said. ‘And she was completely shocked. It looked like her knees wanted to buckle. I informed her that this was a police operation and that I was placing her under arrest.

But Maria’s surprise was nothing compared to Carlos’s mixture of shock and horror when he found out later that day. Danie had decided not to let him in on their undercover operation. "I think if you have to inform someone that his wife is trying to murder him, his whole demeanor towards his wife would change. I don’t think keeping your emotions in check is completely possible. You can imagine the stress that would mean for that man. So we knew we had things under control at that time and that we had a plan to protect his life, and we didn’t think it would be helpful to involve Carlos before the time. We let Carlos know after the arrest and told him we wanted to see him at the police station," Danie said.

"Of course, Carlos was blown away to hear the news. And I told him this is what we had against her. And he spoke to her there in my office, but I think he was in a state of total shock. And he was more than just a little bit sceptical. But I gave him the hard facts, and told him we’d used an undercover agent and that his wife had pretty much admitted that she wanted to have him killed."

Always quick to joke about even the direst circumstances, Carlos had a good laugh recalling the rest of his conversation with Danie. "The colonel spoke to me and said, look, your wife wanted you killed. So you’re very lucky that we came along. And I said I appreciate that, thank you very much, you know."