Brett Kebble was one of at least half a dozen top South African executives and business tycoons who has been shot in the past decade, in cases that are largely still unsolved.

Although police have not linked any of the cases, most of the victims were shot through the window as they sat in their cars, leaving questions about whether the murders involved hired assassins.

• In November 2003, socialite and diamond mogul Hazel Crane was shot four times in her white Mercedes at an intersection in Atholl-Oaklands, Johannesburg. Six months earlier, hit men had missed in another assassination attempt, when they fired at her outside her house;
• In August 2002, Eastern Cape fishing tycoon Luke Groenewald was abducted after assassins had asked for him by name at his front gate. His body was found almost a week later. He had been shot in the head;
• In February 1999, Daewoo president Yong Koo Kwon was shot through the window of his Daewoo Nubira, as he waited for the gates to open at a guesthouse in Morningside, Johannesburg;
• In August 1996, Erich Ellmer, financial director of Daimler-Benz, was murdered in front of his Sandton home; and
• Last month, Stephen Mildenhall, chief investment officer for asset management giant Allan Gray, was shot and wounded outside his Cape Town home.

Kebble was shot through the windows of his Mercedes in Melrose, Johannesburg, this week, in what police believe may have been a professional assassination.

However, Martin Welz, editor of Noseweek, said: “I don’t as yet see any kind of wave of high-profile business hits — it just isn’t the case, certainly when you look at what goes on in places like Brazil.”

With acknowledgements to Rowan Philp and the Sunday Times.