Trackers is a South African action thriller television series created as an adaptation of Deon Meyer's novel of the same name which tells the story of a woman who unwittingly gets involved in an international conspiracy.
Milla Strachan (Rolanda Marais) is an abused, stay-at-home mom from Durbanville, Cape Town who leaves her husband and applies for a job as a journalist at a local paper.
Believing herself to be working as a journalist, it turns out she's actually working for an intelligence agency called the Presidential Intelligence Agency (PIA).
Breaking the agency's protocols she starts her own investigations, leading her bosses in the right directions to solve cases.
Soon she finds herself drawn into a conspiracy involving the head of the PIA and an ex-state bodyguard in a thriller that covers the length and breadth of South Africa.
The series explosively collides in Cape Town in a plot involving organised crime, smuggled diamonds, state security, Black Rhinos, the CIA and an international terrorist plot.
Trackers is an M-Net Original Production co-produced by Cinemax, ZDF, Scene23 and Three River Fiction.
The series producer is Rebecca Fuller-Campbell, with executive producers Cobus van den Berg, Tim Theron, Jonathan Drake, Yolisa Phahle, Nkateko Mabaso, Jan du Plessis, Allan Sperling, Doris Schrenner, Wolfgang Feindt, Deon Meyer and Robert Thorogood.
The supervising producers for M-Net are Kaye Ann Williams, Anneke Villet and David Benjamin Oosthuizen.
The series is from the novel by Deon Meyer and was adapted for television by Robert Thorogood. It was written by Jozua Malherbe, René van Rooyen, Amy Jephta and Kelsey Egan.
The first episode was directed by Jyri Kähönen. Music is by Brendan Jury.
Main Characters
Milla Strachan (Rolanda Marais)
At the opening of the story Milla, pushed beyond breaking point, finally walks out on her unfaithful and abusive husband and dismissive teenage son.
After years spent nurturing her ungrateful family she feels singularly unqualified for the world of employment. She is on the verge of returning home when she is offered a job.
Janina Mentz (Sandi Schultz)
For Director of the PBI - Janina Mentz - preserving the security of the Republic of South African is her religion.
Born in the Cape Flats, she was on active service with the MK when she was still in her teens, serving in Angola and undercover in South Africa.
She sacrificed her personal life to build the Republic and is the implacable enemy of those who would undermine and corrupt it.
She firmly believes in South African independence free of outside interference.
Quinn Makebe (Thapelo Mokoena)
Chief of Operations and Janina's second-in-command at the PBI, there is little doubt that Quinn is being groomed to replace her.
They have worked together now for several years. Quinn demonstrated loyalty through last year's disaster and even now, as she goes out on a limb to save the PBI, he remains her closest confidant and protégé.
But Quinn is ambitious and slick – he is of the post-struggle generation and sometimes Janina doubts his motivations.
A highly educated man from a comfortable background, he strives to prove himself in the field as a man of action.
Julius "Inkunzi/The Bull" Shabangu (Sisanda Henna)
A Johannesburg-based organised crime boss, "Inkunzi" runs a large syndicate involved in car-jacking, drugs, and prostitution.
His powerbase is in Jozi, but he has forged links with Cape Town mobs and owns a club in the city, the Bull Pen, and a vast, beautiful house.
Lemmer (James Gracie)
Former special-forces and ministerial bodyguard, Lemmer walked away from state service over a year ago after a PBI-led operation against a linked Islamist terrorist cell went disastrously wrong.
The mission left the witness he was brought in to protect dead and his reputation as an operative falsely tarnished.
Determined to forget his old life he has moved to the small Karoo town of Loxton refurbishing a money-pit of an old house and keeping his anger management issues in check.
Shaheed Osman (Brendon Daniels)
The leader of a Cape Town based cell of an international terrorist organisation. His efforts will be instrumental in pulling off a major terrorist attack on SA soil.
Teliha Osman (Jill Middelkop)
Osman’s wife. After studying in London in the 2000’s, she returned to Cape Town to complete her PHD. She married Osman soon after and gave up her research post to become a wife and mother to their only child.
Lucas Becker (Ed Stoppard)
Ex-US Navy lieutenant and Middle Eastern archaeological expert, Becker is part of a major artifact smuggling syndicate operating out of Iraq and other Middle Eastern war zones.
When Interpol came after him he stole the syndicate's money and ran to South Africa.
His ex-partners have now caught up with him and want their money back.
Suleiman Daoud (Emmanuel Castis)
Born in Egypt, the youngest son of an Egyptian colonel in Mubarak's Army, Suleiman studied Civil Engineering in the United States - graduating from Caltech in 2002.
He broke all ties with his family in early 2003 and travelled to join Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq.
Suleiman was flagged by the CIA as part of the team that bombed the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad in August 2003, killing the UN's special representative and triggering the UN's withdrawal from Iraq, becoming a feared AQI commander in Anbar Province.
In 2006, he reappeared back in Egypt as an early trainer of AQ in the Sinai Peninsula (AQSP).
In 2014, he escaped a US drone attack in North Waziristan, reappearing in 2016 in Gombe in North Eastern Nigeria in talks with leading members of Boko Haram.
While he was in the city, there were a devastating series of coordinated car bomb attacks. Until ringing the bells at the PBI, he has been keeping a low profile.
He would not normally deal with an outfit like Alajna, far from the real centre of International jihad; the only reason he is in Cape Town now is because Alajna have access to something no one else can provide.
Daoud is cold, calm, and utterly ruthless. He will take over any operation and remove anyone anything that threatens its success.
Cornel "Flea" van Jaarsveld (Trix Vivier)
"Flea" is an expert wildlife tracker who no longer wants to live the desperate hand-to-mouth existence she lived with her father, Louis.
He was also a master tracker, raised among the San of South Africa.
He worked, not always legally, for American and German trophy hunters in Botswana and Zimbabwe, which is where he got a prominent farmer's daughter, Drika, pregnant.
The farmer disowned his daughter, who gave birth to Flea.