Last week, we reported the unfortunate news of the death of Uwe Gemballa, the owner of one our favorite auto tuning firms, Gemballa.

As more details surrounding Gemballa’s death are uncovered, it’s come to the point that the story behind it has more twists and turns than a John Grisham novel.

According to a report made by the South African Mail & Guardian, Gemballa may have been the victim of an elaborate plan to lead him to South Africa where he was going to be executed. The story also seems to point to notorious kingpin, Radovan Krejcir, as the mastermind behind Gemballa’s killing. From the report, M&G writes that friction between Gemballa and Krejcir began when the latter who was smuggling money into South Africa using Gemballa cars, received a car that didn’t have money on it. After a heated argument between the two, Krejcir made no bones about his intention to hurt Gemballa if he didn’t give back the money that was supposed to come in one of the cars.

Continued after the jump

The plan, as it turns out, was to bring Gemballa to South Africa, which is exactly what happened when earlier this year, Gemballa disappeared in the country under mysterious circumstances, prompting German and South African authorities to look for the missing German.

As the details have filtered in, it looks like Gemballa’s trip to South Africa may have been as a result of a supposed business meeting to open a Gemballa branch in South Africa with a man named Jerome Safi, a reported associate of Krejcir himself.

As soon as he got to South Africa, Gemballa immediately disappeared after meeting up with an unidentified man on February 8th at the OR Tambo International Airport. He wasn’t seen again until last week when his body was recovered during a search in the South African town of Atteridgeville, just outside Pretoria.

There’s more to this story than what meets the eye with more twists and turns that are more likely still to be discovered.