Small quantities of Escheria coli were genetically modified with Clostridium perfringens at the principal South African BW research, testing, and production facility, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), under the auspices of Project Coast. Some of it may have been used to contaminate beverages or foodstuffs, but there is no evidence that these were ever actually consumed by targeted enemies.

Dr. Adriaan Botha, a microbiologist working under Dr. Mike Odendaal at RRL, perfected the genetic modification of the Escheria coli bacterium. His stated objective was to develop a harmless vaccine that would protect sheep from one of the lethal toxins expressed by the Clostridium perfringens bacterium, but he was well aware that combining this bacterium with that of E. coli could also lead to the development of a dangerous BW agent. Whether this work was done in part to test the potential usefulness of the substance as an assassination weapon is uncertain. After overseeing the production of this and various harmful organisms, Odendaal gave them to Dr. André Immelman, RRL's R&D director. He also regularly provided Immelman with instructions concerning dosages and safety precautions for handling the dangerous substances he and his assistants made. Immelman then stored these and other potentially lethal materials inside a refrigerator in a bomb-proof, fireproof walk-in safe in his office.

On the purported instructions of Project Officer Wouter Basson, Immelman later secretly transferred a number of highly toxic substances to military and police personnel through various channels. Some of these dangerous materials were provided to Dr. R. F. Botha (alternately known as "Koos," "Mr. R," and "Frans Brink") and thence to Vernon Lange (otherwise known as "Mr. T" and "Theo"), both of whom were operatives of the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB), a covert assassination unit operating under the aegis of the Special Forces (SF). Others were provided directly to Chris Smit, Gert Otto, and Manie van Staden, three Security Branch (SB) officers from the South African Police (SAP). According to the 1989 "sales list" (TRC document 52), as well as firsthand testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings or Basson's criminal trial, Immelman passed such items on, either to the aforementioned persons in innocuous public places like restaurants, or to Basson himself in the latter's office at South African Medical Services (SAMS) headquarters in Centurion. Another reported recipient of RRL's poisons was Johnny Koortzen, an ex-South African Defence Force (SADF) psychologist who in 1988 assumed control over Systems Research and Development, a company that bioengineer Jan Lourens had set up in part to manufacture special "applicators," i.e., arcane assassination devices. Some of these toxic materials and devices were subsequently used to assassinate designated "enemies of the state"—guerrillas in neighboring countries, troublesome prisoners, untrustworthy members of the security forces, or activists in the African National Congress (ANC) and other South African opposition groups.

Immelman later testified that he handed three 1 liter bottles of soft drinks contaminated with Escheria coli over to Basson sometime in 1990 or 1991. It is unknown whether this particular E. coli had been combined with Clostridium perfringens, or whether these bottles were thereafter employed to poison the government's opponents, but this is certainly possible given the South African penchant for using toxic substances to murder or sicken proclaimed enemies. For example, under the rubric of "Operation Dual," a clandestine program initiated by the SADF in 1979, toxic agents were regularly used by the D[elta]40 and Barnacle units – the CCB's predecessors—to secretly eliminate prisoners and security risks. According to Johan Theron, the SADF's chief executioner, this program was sanctioned from the outset by General Fritz Loots, the first commander of the fledgling SF. With the establishment of the Teen-Rewolusionêre Inligting Taakspan (TREWITS: Counter-Revolutionary Intelligence Task Force) in the mid-1980s, the "Dual" assassination program was later expanded and coordinated at an even higher level.

In 1990 President F. W. De Klerk prohibited the carrying out of any further work on lethal CBW agents, and in 1993 Project Coast was officially terminated. The stocks of BW agents produced by South Africa were supposedly destroyed in conformity with international agreements, despite the fact that the actual destruction process was never independently verified and there is evidence that some of the substances were removed and retained by Coast scientists. Although several laboratories there still produce highly toxic substances for normal industrial, veterinary, or agricultural use, none of these substances appear to be intended for deployment as lethal anti-personnel agents. The current government still has access to the type of technical expertise and the sort of sophisticated R&D facilities that would enable it to initiate a new BW program, but there is little reason to suppose that it has any interest in doing so.

However, one other case of E. coli modification with Clostridium perfringens occurred long after Project Coast had been terminated. In the summer of 2002 RRL's original managing director Daan Goosen, who was by then engaged in monitoring BW for South Africa's revamped National Intelligence Agency, was twice asked to provide Coast-related biological materials that had supposedly been destroyed to foreign parties. In the first such instance, he willingly provided a 5ml sample of goat serum used as an anthrax diagnostic agent for livestock and a 2ml sample of freeze-dried E. coli that had been genetically modified with the gene coding for Clostridium perfringens toxin to a shadowy American named Robert A. Zlokie, who was a US intelligence operative. Goosen later admitted that the reason he supplied Zlokie with this latter item was that he wanted to make the Americans, with whom he wished to collaborate, aware of just how sophisticated the genetic engineering potential of Project Coast had been. After investigating that modified E. coli sample, however, officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) decided that they were not impressed enough to enter into a collaborative arrangement with Goosen. It is perhaps worth noting as well that the middleman in this exchange was a right-winger and retired SADF Major-General associated with the CCB named Tai Minnaar, who in 1989 established a private company called Military Technical Services (MTS) that had links with the powerful South African mercenary recruitment agency Executive Outcomes (EO).

	Updated February 2004