Finance
Cocoa Prices Have Crashed but Smugglers Are Still Making Money
Ghana’s cocoa board pays $27 more for a bag of beans than it’s worth in Ivory Coast. Illicit traders are profiting from the difference.
A cocoa farmer walks near a border crossing in the Ghanaian village of Yakasi.
Photographer: Ekow Dontoh/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Much of Jamilatu Mohammed’s harvest of cocoa beans is sitting in a storage shed near her dilapidated mud house along Ghana’s western border when it should be on its way to factories of chocolatiers like Nestle SA.
The mother of two and other small growers in the world’s no. 2 producer represent the casualties in a global price slump triggered by traders in London and Singapore and aggravated by bureaucrats in distant African capitals.