Cattle rustling and smuggling play a significant but often overlooked role in fuelling the conflict in the central Sahel. In the tri-border region between Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo, cattle rustling finances extremist insurgent groups and supports recruitment.
This political economy analysis (PEA) of cattle rustling in the tri-border region examines how the trade is organised, who benefits and how it intersects with broader patterns of insecurity. The report is part of a broader study on the economic, social and political dynamics of communities in the borderlands between the Sahel and coastal West Africa that rely on fluid cross-border trade and movement for their livelihoods.
For decades, local networks of butchers and bandits have trafficked livestock across borders. The expansion of militant extremist groups into Burkina Faso’s Est region in 2018 and later into the Centre-Est region in Burkina Faso and northern Togo in 2022, has sharply increased the scale and impact of cattle rustling.
This study finds that rustled cattle from the Sahel ends up in Ghana, where insurgents increasingly rely on trusted intermediaries, such as butchers and traders, to sell livestock into Ghana’s licit markets. This extends the insurgent conflict economy into Ghana.
The research findings presented here are based on the available literature and primary interviews with people involved in the trade in nineteen communities in Ghana’s Upper East and North East regions.
Key findings
At present, cattle rustled on the Burkinabe side of the border are moved into Ghana, where they enter regular trade flows, effectively extending the conflict economy into Ghana. Evolving cattle rustling and smuggling dynamics have empowered three groups of actors in the cattle value chain:
Cattle rustlers form one group (Group A). A key entity is Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), insurgents who hold the majority of stolen cattle, but due to limited mobility they sell them for low prices through intermediaries. Small groups of bandits also conduct opportunistic cattle rustling, but most of the bandits in Burkina Faso and Togo have either joined the insurgents or, in some cases, a government-supported force, the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie – VDP).
Group B are the intermediaries who purchase stolen livestock and mix them into the licit system. They are the largest group of benefactors in the cattle value chain. The most important intermediaries are Burkinabe and Ghanaian cattle dealers and butchers, and rogue VDP members, who all buy directly from insurgents or through a third party. The rise of these intermediaries in Ghana is extending the conflict economy into coastal West Africa.
Group C is a set of smaller facilitators such as chiefs, local security services and veterinarians who – sometimes unknowingly – play a facilitating role in the stolen cattle markets. By enmeshing more Ghanaians in conflict through trade, indirectly aiding insurgents fighting on the country’s borders, and undermining state capacity and legitimacy, they constitute a threat to Ghanaian and Burkinabe security.
Policy recommendations
Intercepting stolen livestock and prosecuting Ghanaian intermediaries would make it more difficult for insurgents to sell stolen cattle, eroding their capabilities without directly confronting them.
Prosecuting intermediaries will help raise awareness about the indirect participation in the war economy of violent extremism to the wider public and signal that impunity will not be tolerated. Authorities should focus their efforts on individuals engaged at the higher end of the business instead of more-easily intercepted drivers, which will likely be difficult.
Longer-term, investment and development in Ghana’s domestic cattle system would spur local development and reduce the demand for foreign beef that incentivises transnational cattle rustling and smuggling.