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 chemicals used for processing drugs were nearby.

In the house Combrinck could see movement. And then a man wearing a hazmat suite and gas mask appears in sight. It’s the same equipment which Combrinck and his men use to protect themselves from hazardous chemicals when they destroy drug labs.

The next day Combrinck and his Hawks colleagues arrive at the house with a court order.

They knock on the door. The man who opens it introduces himself as Asen Ivanov. Sunday Times · TimesLIVE