Illegal Zimbabweans are flooding into Cape Town, reported the Cape Argus on Wednesday.
Not all are illegal though and indeed some of that country's top talent will be hard to catch in Saturday's 38th running of the Old Mutual Two Oceans ultra-marathon.
Zimbabwean men have dominated the 56km event in recent years, taking four of the last six Cape classics. Only Hlonepha Mphulanyane and Muleleki Nobanda in '03 and '04 stemmed the tide.
And frankly the run of foreign winners doesn't look like changing on Saturday. Moses Njodzi is back to defend the title he won last year, as is the winner of the 2004 and 2005 chapters of the race, Marco Mambo. Both run in the black colours of the Harmony Gold Club.
Throw in 2001 winner Honest Mutsakani and last year's fifth placed Henry Moyo and the Zimbabwean invasion looms large.
Even rival SA club Mr Price's fundis reckon their hopes lie with Kingston Marimbe, you guessed it, another Zimbabwean. Harmony pretenders to Njodzi's crown are Bethuel Netshifhefhe, if he can stave off a nagging groin injury, 1996 Olympic marathon champion Josiah Thugwane, if he has brushed up his downhill skills and can hold back early on, and in another Zimbabwean, Rabson Chigara, the club reckon they've got a real surprise.
Mr Price's Maringa, fifth in 2003, won the tough Loskop 50km in Mpumalanga last year. Locally the club has a few athletes with a chance of top 20 or better, in the shape of hardman Warren Petterson, Neo Molema and Peninsula Marathon runner-up Thembelani Zola.
In the women's line-up the more things change they more they stay the same. Except for the fact that here the threat is Russian rather than Zimbabwean. Winner Tatyana Zhirkova is back (or is she - she went missing en route and didn't arrive in Cape Town on Wednesday), as is runner-up Yelena Nurgalieva, and she's joined by twin Olesya.
Also running are Russian Oceans debutants Madina Biktagirova and Lilia Yadzhak. Biktagirova ran 2hr 28min to win the Istanbul Marathon this year and that speed alone will make her a factor. Not much is known about Yadzhak although she ran a 2:38 to win the Siberian Marathon last year. Hungary's Simone Staicu, winner in 2003 and third last year, looks to be far stronger than last year when she clearly wasn't quite over the birth of her first child.
Big difference in the women's line-up is that the twins and Staicu have moved from Mr Price to Harmony this year.
The foreign influence is also strongly felt in the 21.1km with Zim's Cuthbert Nysango and Namibia's Helaria Johannes winning last year. Adding more international flavour is Kenyan superstar Tegla Loroupe and yet another Zimbabwean, Tabitha Tatsa, who won Peninsula Marathon a few years back and ran 2:30:12 to win the Seoul Marathon earlier this year, 19th fastest time of 2007 so far.