IN PLAIN SIGHT

Working openly at a Constantia gym, this personal trainer's credentials have been called into question after his alleged criminal past was exposed

- BY CLYDE ADAMS-VISTER

GLASS doors rotate constantly as members stream in and out of the gym.

Conversations hum across the floor, punctuated by the clatter of weights and whirs and beeps of machines.

Some gymgoers head for Pilates, others for the squash courts or the steam room, moving between tightly scheduled sessions.

This is a snapshot of Virgin Active in the upmarket Cape Town enclave of Constantia, where health, appearance and routine are closely managed and time is structured around training.

Outside, cars line the parking lot, some luxury vehicles watched by bodyguards with an air of practised patience.

It was here among the protein shakes and push-ups of patrons at Virgin Active Constantia that Bulgarian national Stanislav Stamenov quietly built a new life as a sought-after personal trainer.

To members, clients and other trainers, 40-year-old Stan — as he was known - was a disciplined coach who pushed punishing sets and delivered results while rarely lingering in conversation.

"To most people passing through the doors, he was simply part of the furniture," one of his former clients tells YOU.

But that perception shifted when the Daily Maverick reported last month that Stan appeared to match a man listed as wanted in Romania for alleged drug trafficking.

He's the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, a global electronic alert issued to law enforcement around the world to find and arrest a wanted person.

His name had surfaced before in dark circumstances, linked to the May 2023 killings of four Bulgarian nationals in Constantia, including Krasimir Kamenov, for whom Stan worked as a bodyguard.

When YOU visits the gym, staff are polite and welcoming but quick to say they had little interaction with him.

"It was only hi and bye", they say.

Security staff in the parking lot say Stan would usually arrive in a white Hyundai, sometimes a small silver car. “He was just the trainer guy,” one says.