Looks like this story is true. Next question is are the Russians involved.
I don’t see why the Russians would need to jump into this ‘gimmick’.
You just need some Iranian money-bag guy to show up and talk business with some drug-gang in Johannesburg and they’d contract out some ‘action’.
If any of this were true...they wouldn’t engage on the embassy. They’d just wait this out and plan on some party or event where the ambassador would show up.
In the old days, there used to be a lot of Israeli involvement in SA, and they’d filter out this type of intelligence, and know ahead of time. I doubt if that still exists today.