By Ange Aboa
ABIDJAN (Reuters) – The chief of staff of Ivory Coast’s army has ordered the suspension of five officials tasked with combating cocoa smuggling in the west of the country, the army said in a statement seen by Reuters late on Tuesday.
An estimated 50,000 to 75,000 metric tons of Ivorian cocoa has been trafficked over the western border to Guinea and Liberia since the start of the 2024/25 season in October, exporters and buyers told Reuters.
In the statement, the army accused five officials from the border town of Sipilou of involvement in trafficking, following an investigation.
The people – the town’s prefect, police commissioner, head of the armed forces detachment, commander of the gendarmerie brigade and head of the customs office – were immediately suspended, it said.
Large quantities of cocoa beans were illegally transported to Guinea during the holiday period in late December with the help of corrupt authorities meant to be combating trafficking, more than a dozen industry sources told Reuters.
They said smugglers paid corrupt authorities an average of 15 million CFA ($23,500) per trailer truck, which can hold up to 40 tons of cocoa, to turn a blind eye to their activities.
Traffickers in Guinea have been paying between 4,000 CFA and 5,000 CFA per kilogram of cocoa beans, well above Ivory Coast’s farm gate price of 1,800 CFA, due to the rise in world cocoa prices.
“In Sipilou, Danane, Man and Ouaninou, where cocoa enters Guinea illegally, everyone knows that corrupt local authorities have been facilitating trafficking, but the sums involved are too high to stop the leak,” said Daouda Doumbia, a cocoa tracker in Ivory Coast’s Tonkpi Region.
Drissa Konate, a buyer in the Ivorian town of Ouaninou, said he saw several dozen trailer trucks from the Ivorian city of Seguela cross to Guinea between October 2024 and January 2025.
“Honestly, there is far too much money to be made in trafficking and I don’t see how we’re going to stop it,” he said, noting the higher prices fetched just over the border.
Exporters said the impact of smuggling was already being felt, with less cocoa making it to ports.
“This is good news but it comes too late,” one export executive said.
(Editing by Portia Crowe and Christina Fincher)
