Unlicensed gold mining and the extortion system operated by bandit groups in Nigeria, particularly across the North-West and parts of the North-Central region, have evolved beyond rural criminality into a parallel economy that undermines the Nigerian state’s control over security, revenue, and governance. What appears on the surface as a law-and-order problem is increasingly an economic one. The combination of unregulated mining and armed extortion has created what security analysts describe as a “conflict economy”, a system in which mineral wealth finances violence, while violence protects illicit extraction. This development has significant implications for national security.