Two dead at trophy hunting estate in South Africa: shipping heiress Caroline von Rantzau found shot

On the private hunting and game reserve Leeuwfontein north of Pretoria, South Africa, two people were shot dead within 24 hours in early June.

Among the dead: the German shipping heiress Caroline von Rantzau (26), who died from a gunshot in her room on 1 June. Witnesses claim to have heard two shots.

Initially, there was talk of an unspecified "accident". However, on-site research by "Bild" and investigations by the South African police paint a different picture. Just one day before the 26-year-old's death, financial manager Arno Koën (44) had been found dead on the family's hunting estate. Koën managed the family's finances and was responsible for guest bookings.

Weapon allegedly came from the father's gun cabinet

According to police, both victims died from gunshots: Koën from a 9mm bullet, von Rantzau presumably from a shot fired from a .357 calibre hunting rifle. According to one witness, the weapon is said to have come from the gun cabinet of her father, Eberhart von Rantzau. The deceased reportedly had a close relationship with the financial manager and is said to have described him to confidants as a kind of "foster father". The body of the passionate recreational hunter is now being autopsied. The autopsy is expected to clarify how the 26-year-old died and whether anyone is under investigation.

Business model: trophy hunting

The Leeuwfontein estate is no ordinary game reserve. On roughly 4,500 hectares, the von Rantzau family runs a luxury lodge there and offers commercial trophy hunting safaris. The website promises paying clients an all-round service, from firearm handling to daily trophy preparation, even for hunts involving dangerous animals. It is exactly the business model that has reduced wild animals in South Africa to mere commodities for decades: wealthy recreational hunters from Europe and the USA book the killing of antelopes, buffalo or predators such as lions and leopards as a holiday experience.

Caroline von Rantzau's father, Eberhart von Rantzau, together with other family members, runs Deutsche Afrika-Linien GmbH, whose container shipping business was sold to Hapag-Lloyd in 2022. The family continues to hold stakes in container depots in South Africa.

Deadly series surrounding the trophy hunting industry

The case fits into a series of fatal incidents surrounding commercial hunting farms in southern Africa. In April, US millionaire and big-game hunter Ernie Dosio (75) was trampled to death by a herd of elephants in Gabon. In July 2025, the co-owner of the private Gondwana game reserve in South Africa died after an elephant attack on his own estate. In 2017, South African professional hunter Theunis Botha was crushed by a wounded female elephant in Zimbabwe. And in 2024, a dismissed employee shot dead the manager of a luxury safari lodge in Limpopo.

Add to this the ever-present gun violence: South Africa has one of the highest killing rates in the world, with around 30 people dying from firearms there every day. Where firearms are omnipresent and the killing of wild animals is sold as a luxury holiday experience, tragic incidents are all but inevitable.

Notably, the von Rantzau family is closely intertwined with South Africa. Father Eberhart von Rantzau serves in Hamburg as Honorary Consul of the Republic of South Africa. The killed Arno Koën, in turn, was according to the lodge's Facebook page not only the family's financial manager but also a director of Leeuwfontein Safaris, which markets its trophy hunting offers in German directly to clients from the DACH region.

You can find out more about the darker side of recreational hunting in our dossiers Crime & hunting, Psychology & hunting and recreational hunting.