27 August 2025

Tracking Thabo Bester

On Friday, 15 March 2024, Tracking Thabo Bester racked up the most first-day views of any documentary on Showmax ever, well ahead of the previous record-holder, Rosemary’s Hitlist. The true-crime documentary was also the most-watched title across all genres over the weekend and received rave reviews, with IOL’s Oluthando Keteyi calling it “jawdropping” and Rapport’s Leon van Nierop describing it as “angry, bizarre, brilliant.”

Tracking Thabo Bester is the true-crime documentary South Africa has been asking for, ever since GroundUp first broke the news that the convicted murderer and rapist did not die in Cell 35 after all and was instead shopping at Woolworths in Sandton City.

Thabo Bester was the most searched person in South Africa on Google in 2023, with his co-accused Dr. Nandipha Magudumana just behind in fourth place, as the whole country obsessed over their stormy tale of love, murder, corruption and deception. Daily Maverick named them both ‘SA Villain of the Year.’

With the trial of South Africa’s most famous prison break scheduled to start in June 2024, Tracking Thabo Bester is a timely four-part investigation into Thabo Bester; why he was called the Facebook rapist and in jail originally; how a celebrity doctor fell for a convicted criminal and left her children behind to go on the run with him to Tanzania; and who really died in Cell 35.

Tracking Thabo Bester is produced by multi-award-winners IdeaCandy (Rosemary’s Hitlist, Devilsdorp, Steinheist) and directed by Nikki Comninos (Convict Conman).

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