Radicalisation and terrorism as well as their possible intersection with other crimes are key security challenges in Europe. The current report presents emergent findings on the link between extremism and crime in Bulgaria. Examining the crime-terror nexus in Bulgaria is fraught by a number of problems, most importantly the low number of arrestees for whom sufficient data can be gathered and analysed. Nevertheless, the limited data suggests no connection between radical Islamism and crime in the country. In contrast to many other European countries, the terrorism and radicalisation threats faced by Bulgaria include an external dimension. This is the case even with regard to homegrown radicalisation which has been observed as a result of the importation and spread among vulnerable populations of radical Islamist ideologies, untypical to Islam as practiced in Bulgaria.
