Boots on the ground

Nov 15 2023 14
Boots on the ground Podcast artwork

In this short podcast series, we follow Sunday Times top investigative journalists as they cover the real stories that make-up SA’s national headlines. Boots on the ground is a true piece of mobile journalism — all interviews, voices and sound effects have been gathered using nothing but smartphones. Boots on the ground is a production of MultimediaLIVE, a division of Arena Holdings. PLEASE NOTE: This podcast may contain explicit and sensitive content. Listener discretion is advised. #Investigation, #Police, #SocialJustice, #Crime, #ServiceDelivery

RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


The sombre stories of pupils at rural government schools

Nov 15 2023 29 mins  
In this episode of 'Boots On The Ground', we follow a pupil to a rural school. Among the issues we hear about are drug use at primary schools, a school with only two teachers for nine subjects, and we speak to civil organisations. About 41% of pupils who started school 12 years ago did not make it to grade 12 last year. We go on the ground to determine the real impact of the most d

Cape of Cocaine EP 4 - 'go to prison, meet nice guys, become a nice guy'

Dec 04 2022 39 mins  
In February 2018 assassins murdered Bulgarian couple Angelo Dimov and Nessie Peeva in their home at around 11 am in the Cape Town suburb of Bergvliet. It was not a house burglary gone wrong, it was a hit ordered by a British cocaine dealer who felt he was double crossed. There was more to Dimov and Peeva than their friends in the Cape Town southern suburbs knew. Dimov was an allege

Cape of Cocaine EP 3 - Cocaine Inc: Chasing Ivanov, the Bulgarian mafia's fixer

Nov 26 2022 30 mins  
It’s February 2014 and Hawks Warrant Officer Johan Combrinck has received a tip-off through Interpol that Bulgarian men were busy constructing a large drug lab in a mansion in the Cape Town suburb of Durbanville. On the evening of 24 February Combrinck parked his car opposite the house and conducted a steak-out. The smell of sulphur was in the air, a sign to Combrinck that chemic

Cape of Cocaine EP 2 - The ghost ships haunting SA's shores

Nov 20 2022 30 mins  
Out there with the legendary Flying Dutchman is a fleet of 'ghost ships' trafficking cocaine from South America to destinations around the globe. They are invisible to satellites and tracking systems and make lonely voyages undetected, sometimes across rough seas. The Atlantic Warrior is one of them. She belongs to the Bulgarian Mafia and trafficked cocaine from Brazil to Saldanha

Cape of Cocaine EP 1 - Discovery on the shores of Saldanha Bay

Nov 18 2022 34 mins  
On March 1 2021 the Windward, a Bulgarian mafia cocaine ship, was three days behind schedule docking at Saldanha Bay harbour on SA’s west coast. Bulgarian cocaine fleet manager Asen Ivanov and his Bulgarian associates were waiting, probably worried their Myanmar crew had become lost in thick fog or rough seas. Unbeknown to him, he had much bigger problems because watching the maf

Cape of Cocaine - Trailer

Nov 10 2022 2 mins  
One of the biggest cocaine busts in South Africa’s history, on the misty shores of Saldanha Bay, lifted the lid on an international drug-smuggling ring led by the Bulgarian mafia. But the syndicate brought more than just the drug to this country's shores. Cape of Cocaine is a mini podcast series unpacking the group's operations and its dealings in South Africa. It's a tale of dru

Truck drivers ‘flying’ to meet increased export demand blamed for road carnage

Sep 28 2022 21 mins  
The horrific crash between a truck and bakkie that claimed the lives of 20 people, including 18 pupils, on the N2 in Pongola, northern KwaZulu-Natal, on September 16 has shone a spotlight on the cracks in SA's road freight industry. The rising global demand for coal caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has hurt the local trucking industry as it races to meet growing export demand

Royal Rumble - how are Zulu monarchs actually selected?

Aug 19 2022 30 mins  
Welcome to Royal Rumble, a short podcast series. This series is dedicated to celebrating the amaZulu Monarchy and its traditions; while unravelling the complicated power dynamics associated with traditional succession and leadership. In this first episode of our three part series, we focus on the significance of traditional leadership and the contradictory parallel existence of a c

The bloodiest days in SA's democratic history

Jul 07 2022 57 mins  
In today’s episode of Boots on the Ground, behind SA’s biggest headlines we commemorate the bloodiest days in our democratic history, by not only reliving what our country went through, but also trying to make sense of it. You will hear testimony from looters themselves, who saw an opportunity and took it, community members who witnessed racial tension rip through their hometow

SA’S IS CRISIS | State lets scores of fighters return from Syria in secret scheme

May 08 2022 39 mins  
The government is repatriating hundreds of South Africans and their families, who for years fought for and aided the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, providing them with new identity documents and a means to resettle. A TimesLIVE investigation can reveal the repatriations — done through the international relations and cooperation and home affairs departments, with the State Security