evidence: The origins and drivers of jihadist expansion towards north-western Benin lay in the ongoing governance and security crises in Burkina Faso. In 2014, Burkinabé President Blaise Compaoré was ousted by a popular uprising, leaving the state ill-equipped to provide basic services in the rural periphery. This vacuum was gradually filled by jihadist groups, such as JNIM, which began pushing into Burkina Faso via the northern border with Mali in 2015. As of mid-2023, these groups had established control over large swathes of Burkinabé territories in the north, south and east, slowly encircling the capital of Ouagadougou. [...] Alongside their involvement in farmer-pastoralist land disputes, the expansion of violent extremist groups is enabled by informal spaces. This occurs through partnerships with criminal organizations operating along the disputed Kourou-Koalou corridor between Kompienga in Burkina Faso and western Atakora in Benin. Protecting networks trafficking in illicit goods such as weapons, poached animals, and narcotics, jihadists extract supplies and payments. However, they also target informal sectors critical to the livelihoods of local people to entrench themselves politically. Fuel smuggling, known locally as kpayo, is a salient example. In a region lacking sufficient legal petrol stations, the informal fuel trade is essential to the livelihoods of communities existing along the Benin-Burkina Faso border. The toleration of jihadist control over the fuel trade maintained the affordability and availability of smuggled fuel, for both civilians and fighters. Such dynamics enable jihadist authority over informal, but sometimes critical, local economies which subvert state control and entrench them in local service provision.