Making jihad or making money? Understanding the transformation of Dagestan’s jamaats into organised crime groups

Journal Abstract

While terrorist and insurgent groups have often combined anti-state subversion with ‘purely‘ criminal activities in order to obtain the financial means to wage their ideological struggle, little is known about the transformation of such groups into non-ideological organised crime groups (OCG) with close links to authorities. This holds particularly for jihadist groups that have on ideological grounds ruled out collaboration with their archenemies – ‘infidels’ and ‘apostates’. Using unique ethnographic data from Russia’s Dagestan, this article explores the causes and contexts of the gradual transformation of some of Dagestan’s jihadist units – jamaats – into organised crime groups collaborating with local authorities.