Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service, where today I'm in Ghana

for the first of two programs going deep into the world of those involved in cross-border smuggling.

I started driving in 2012 between Ghana and Burkina Faso and Togo. Everyone has to be afraid,

because if they catch you doing this, you will be arrested.

How big is this illicit trade and what's really driving it?

Smuggling is massive. All the three frontiers that Ghana has with Bokina Faso, Ivory Coast and Togo are highly porous.

Cross-border smuggling and the real cost to Africa.

That's Business Daily from the BBC.

A gunfight at a border checkpoint in northern Ghana.

But this isn't a straightforward cops and robbers shootout.

This exchange occurred bewilderingly

between different factions of Ghana's own security forces,

between the army and the police.

It is something that really baffled many people. Up to now, is it got to tell exactly why

the military would intervene in the case like this. That's local investigative reporter Edward

Adetti, who says that he and other reporters are still struggling to understand what really took

place at this checkpoint in the border town of Musiga in northeast Ghana.

The police command received a tip-off that some people were trying to smuggle some bags of cocoa beans.

So after the police stopped the vehicle, the commander dispatched the vehicle to the police divisional headquarters for search and interrogation.

Now, when they got to another checkpoint, another military squad, numbering about 50, we are told, blocked the road.

The military asked that the police hand over the track.

The police disagreed against saying the military had no authority to direct them.

...