Illegal economies have received substantial attention in conflict studies over the past decades. Often, this attention is linked to economicist paradigms, rendering invisible the political processes linking conflict and illegal economies. By discussing the Colombian case, we argue that criminalisation is linked to patterns of capital accumulation and State-building. First, it reflects a long-term conflict of Proudhonian overtones between small-scale producers and big capital; secondly, it reflects a Tillyian process but without a Tillyian effect. Thus, the interaction between capital accumulation, political power and warfare takes place, without the expected result of a centralised and efficient, democratic State.