Small quantities of digoxin, a cardiac glycocide that can be fatal, especially when it is improperly administered to people with heart disease, were produced under the auspices of Project Coast. This was probably done at Delta G Scientific, the principal South African CW research and production facility, rather than at Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), the main BW research, testing, and production facility. Some of this digoxin was then added to foodstuffs or other items, and may have ended up being consumed by targeted enemies.

According to his colleague Dr. Johan Koekemoer, Steven Beukes may have possessed—and possibly manufactured—small quantities of digoxin at Delta G. The digoxin was then apparently transferred from Delta G to RRL, where Dr. Mike Odendaal and Dr. James Davies were involved in testing the effects of various poisonous substances by mixing them into food and beverages. After producing these poisons and contaminated items, they handed them over to Dr. André Immelman, RRL's R&D director. Odendaal also regularly provided Immelman with instructions concerning dosages and safety precautions for handling the dangerous substances he made. Immelman then stored these and other lethal materials inside a refrigerator in a bombproof, fireproof walk-in safe in his office.

On the purported instructions of Project Officer Wouter Basson, Immelman later secretly transferred digoxin and other 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.

Among the items that appear on the "sales list" is digoxin powder, which was listed as having been distributed by Immelman to Koos. Around that time CCB member Abraham van Zyl decided to assassinate Abdullah Omar (a plan codenamed "Project Goldie"), a regional secretary of the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front and future Minister of Justice, and for this purpose provided CCB operative E. J. Smit with the digoxin and ordered him to sprinkle it on Omar's food. For unclear reasons this operation was never carried out. Basson later claimed that digoxin was used for research on the movement of potassium in vivo, not to murder people. Basson's claims cannot be accepted at face value, however, given the South African penchant for using toxic substances to murder or sicken designated enemies. For example, under the rubric of "Operation Dual," a clandestine program initiated by the SADF in 1979, chemical 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 standard CW 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. Although several chemical plants there continue to produce highly toxic substances for normal industrial and 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 CW program, but there is little reason to suppose that it has any interest in doing so.

	Updated March 2004