Assessing the involvement in organized crime of jihadists from the Netherlands

Abstract

To assess the extent to which jihadist travellers from the Netherlands were involved in organized crime, we use police data to analyse their criminal histories, financial records and social networks. Results indicate jihadist travellers far more often have criminal antecedents than their peers do. However, their antecedents were not related to criminality typically associated with organized crime. Data on traveller’s finances neither revealed conspicuous money flows or spending, but rather confirmed they were underperformers on the labour market, and that most were dependent on government benefits. Although police considered some travellers to be part of a criminal youth group, they did not consider them to be involved in crime as a group. Group criminality was, for the most part, petty, and did not involve typical organized criminal activities. Travellers were not the most criminal of group members. Overall, jihadist travellers from the Netherlands, their networks and their activities, offer no evidence for a nexus of any kind between terrorism and organized crime.