This chapter investigates the connection between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and organized crime in Iraq and Syria. It argues that the crime-terror nexus here is one where an organization whose primary aim is overwhelmingly political, largely develops its own use of organized crime methods to raise funds for its political and military aims – with some opportunistic cooperation with existing organized crime networks. The chapter outlines the involvement of ISIS in oil smuggling, the illegal trade in antiquities and human trafficking (including kidnapping). Its shows how three factors determine the nature of the nexus in this case: pre-existing networks and practices of organized crime; the availability of valuable resources and lastly, ISIS’s objective of territorial control and state building. The chapter ends with a consideration of ISIS’s involvement in organized crime since the fall of the Caliphate.
Steenkamp, Christina
Department of Social Sciences
Year of publication: 2022Date of RADAR deposit: 2022-01-18
"This is a draft chapter/article. The final version is available in The nexus between organized crime and terrorism: Types and responses / edited by by Letizia Paoli, Cyrille Fijnaut and Jan Wouters, published in 2022, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788979306 The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only."