A German shipping heiress has been found shot dead in her room at her family’s luxury safari lodge in South Africa, just a day after the estate’s financial manager was also found dead from gunshot wounds on the same property — with police now investigating a possible link between the two deaths.
Caroline von Rantzau, 26, was discovered dead on 1 June at the Leeuwfontein hunting and wildlife reserve in Limpopo province, north of Pretoria, owned by her family. According to police, she died from a gunshot wound sustained in her room, with witnesses reporting they heard two shots fired. Investigators believe the fatal shot came from a hunting rifle of .357 calibre.
The previous day, 31 May, financial manager Arno Koën, 44, had been found dead elsewhere on the estate, killed by a shot from a 9mm pistol. According to the lodge’s own social media presence, Koën managed the family’s finances and was also responsible for guest bookings and served as a director of Leeuwfontein Safaris, which markets trophy hunting trips to German-speaking customers.
The von Rantzau family initially gave a markedly different account of events. According to Bild, the family issued a statement saying only that Caroline had died in a “tragic accident” in South Africa, with no mention of a second death or of any gunshot wound. It was only after South African police began investigating both deaths on the property that the true circumstances emerged.
The family is a major name in Germany’s shipping industry. Caroline’s father, Eberhart von Rantzau, is managing director of Hamburg-based Deutsche Afrika-Linien, which sold its container shipping arm to Hapag-Lloyd in 2022, and also serves as honorary consul of South Africa in Hamburg. Caroline had been viewed as a future figure within the family’s shipping group, which employs around 1,200 people, and had been living in South Africa, where she had recently expanded her property portfolio with two additional homes near the Mozambique border.
South African police have ordered post-mortem examinations to establish the precise circumstances of both deaths and have spent two days gathering forensic evidence and speaking to those present on the estate at the time. No motive has yet been confirmed and no arrests have been made, with investigators saying further lines of inquiry have not been ruled out.
