Drawing on an original dataset of 408 incidents of interaction this article examines the nature and scale of links between terrorism and the illicit trade in drugs. To achieve this, it develops a new crime-terror-drug interaction model mapping 30 components of interaction and influencing variables. It identifies 47 terrorist groups connected to the drug economy and reveals new findings on indicators significant for predicting terrorist group engagement in the drug trade and types of interaction. Cautioning against meta-theoretical models, it advocates the adoption of discrete evidence-based criminal typology models to better inform legal and policy responses to the crime-terror nexus.