Kidnapping for ransom at roadblocks is particularly lucrative. In one week in March 2025, ISM may have raised over $3,000 from kidnapping and extortion at roadblocks on the N380. These ransom amounts are very high, particularly in such a poor socioeconomic environment. However, reports from victims, sources in the area, and mainstream media are consistent. The amounts may not be unusual internationally either. In Burkina Faso in 2022, ransoms paid to Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin ranged from $500 for small traders to$22,000 for government officials. Such payments are, however, not a predictable source of income, and are typically raised in short campaigns after which security on particular stretches of road is enhanced.
Ransoms are usually paid through one of the mobile money services operated by mobile networks such as Vodacom’s M-PESA, Movitel’s e-Mola, and Tmcel’s mKesh. Insurgents ask victims to transfer money to mobile money accounts likely controlled by ISM collaborators in urban areas. At the other end of the transactions, ISM collaborators need to withdraw ransom payments promptly, before victims can share the recipient number with the authorities. For such a system to work, ISM collaborators must be able to register new SIM cards and open mobile money accounts attached to them frequently enough to allow transfers to take place without being traced. This process likely involves fake identities and suggests that security practices in SIM card and mobile money account registration have broken down.
Such actions also have a wider impact. First, the sums demanded, often equivalent to hundreds of dollars, are a considerable cost for victims and those in their family and personal networks who help them pay. Second, they greatly restrict the movement of goods that are vital to maintaining and rebuilding the province’s economy. Finally, they restrict the supply of humanitarian goods and services. For example, in August 2025, humanitarian support to Macomia, Quissanga, Muidumbe, Mocímboa da Praia, Meluco, and Metuge districts was suspended due to the risk of aid workers encountering ISM roadblocks.
In 2024 and 2025, ransom and extortion were concentrated on the N380 highway. In 2025 alone, over one-third of all such ISM actions took place on this road, particularly on the stretch between Macomia town and Awasse village (see map below). Similarly, hijacking and kidnapping along the N380 spiked twice in 2025, with seven events recorded in March and 10 in August. ISM’s capacity to carry out such actions on that stretch of road is surprising, given that there are at least five military outposts along the N380 between Macomia town and Awasse village. However, ACLED research has shown how inaction by security forces stationed along this route leaves civilians at risk. It is also clear that the ineffectiveness of the security forces in this area allows ISM to raise considerable sums of money that presumably support its operations provincewide.
The concentration of activity on the N380 is not only due to the documented failure of security measures along that route, but also the high rewards available from hijacking valuable vehicles carrying passengers with access to cash. In one incident in June 2025, ISM stopped at least one truck for which the group demanded a ransom of 250,000 Meticais ($4,000 at the time). At least 10 bus passengers were also stopped in the same incident and released after paying ransoms of up to $600 each, according to one victim. The amounts reported in that incident are consistent with reports from victims involved in other such incidents. In March 2025, an Islamic religious leader was among a number of bus passengers kidnapped at an ISM roadblock. He reported that he was released on payment of a $600 ransom, while non-Muslim captives had to pay five times as much.
However, since August 2025, ACLED records just two such incidents on that road. This is likely due to a combination of more regular military escorts along the road, which business representatives demanded, and more risk-averse behavior by individuals and transporters. However, hijacking, kidnapping, and extortion have continued elsewhere in Cabo Delgado. This includes areas where ISM has an established presence, such as the Macomia coast, and areas where its presence is more sporadic and the security presence weaker, such as Meluco and Montepuez.
Artisanal and small-scale mining
The mining and trade of gemstones and gold have long been assumed to be a source of funding for ISM, though evidence has been scarce. The first in-depth study of the insurgency, published in 2019, alleged links between insurgency leaders and figures involved in gemstone trading and mining from both Mozambique and the Great Lakes region. More recently, the Mozambican authorities claim that captured insurgents had both gold and gemstones in their possession, and that the group has raised approximately $30 million from ruby mining alone. That figure is likely significantly exaggerated. Nevertheless, ISM’s increased activity in mining areas indicates that it is becoming a more significant source of income.
In Cabo Delgado, gold and gemstone mining is concentrated in the southern districts of Ancuabe, Meluco, Montepuez, and Balama. According to the Observatório do Meio Rural, the artisanal and small-scale mining sector employs up to 10,000 people as buyers, suppliers, transporters, or service providers. These unlicensed operations attract small investors and workers from across northern Mozambique and East Africa. Isolated mines in southern Cabo Delgado operate on the margins of state control, yet are connected to international markets through informal supply chains that feed formal and informal gold and gemstone markets.
Our analysis is restricted to events with mentions of known mine sites, interactions with miners, gold, and the principal gemstones of ruby and tourmaline. Such events have been primarily in Meluco and Montepuez districts, as well as in Ancuabe, although less so (see map below). Data indicate that the group’s presence in mining areas is becoming more pronounced, and that its importance to the group is growing.
This increased presence comes as the gold price in particular has surged. Since January 2024, the price of gold on global markets has risen by over 60%. Given this increase, the isolation of mining sites, and the group’s more frequent visits to their locations, it is reasonable to hypothesize that they are looking to exert some control on the sector.
In Meluco district, over 55% of mining-related activity by ISM in 2025 was concentrated around Minhanha and Ravia villages. Minhanha village lies approximately 25 km north of Meluco district headquarters and has been a center for artisanal gemstone mining since at least 2011, with tourmaline being the principal gemstone resource. There are also artisanal gold mines in the area. Ravia village lies about 30 km southwest of Meluco toward Montepuez. Like in Minhanha, there is a mixture of gold and tourmaline mines in the area. ISM was not active in Ravia prior to 2025.
Yet despite ISM’s increased and concentrated activity around Minhanha and Ravia, in 2025, the group directly attacked mines in those areas on only three occasions. Information from local sources over the course of 2025 suggests that visits to mine sites around Minhanha by insurgents were more frequent. Sources referred to their presence at mine sites on four occasions between December 2024 and March 2025, though these were not confirmed at the time. A sustained presence around mine sites suggests efforts to control the sector, rather than to destroy it.
The bulk of ISM’s remaining mining-related activity in 2025 has been in Montepuez district, with most of it happening in October. This followed the movement to Montepuez of a group of up to 100 fighters from Muidumbe district at the end of August. Here, the group’s intention to raise funds by exerting control over mining operations was made explicit. On 7 October, at the Ntola gold mine, ISM called a meeting of miners. According to a local source, they stated that they had come to stay but required daily contributions, presumably cash, and threatened to burn property if their demands were not met. They also said they wanted access to gold, according to the source. One week later, they launched one of their rare attacks on another gold mine in the area, destroying property and prompting a police guard on the mine to leave.
A more regular presence of ISM insurgents at mine sites indicates a failure of the state to provide security. This failure may allow relations between ISM and artisanal miners to develop in a mutually beneficial way, as research by ACLED and GI-TOC has shown in Burkina Faso and Mali. If ISM can set a price for their protection that the artisanal and small-scale mining sector can absorb, and if the state remains absent in such areas, it may well allow for a sustained stream of income.
Because the price of gold has more than doubled on world markets over the past three years, ISM’s heightened interest in the sector is not surprising (see graph below). Mine-site prices are not immediately reactive to world prices: Research by the Observatório do Meio Rural indicates a seasonal pricing system set locally at approximately $33 per gram when gold is abundant and around $47 when scarce in late 2024, equivalent to roughly one-third of the world price at the time.
