Thugs committed organized robbery killings of native travelers in nineteenth-century British India. Historical sources describe the thugs as pan-Indian criminal organizations with a formalized structure and an elaborate cultural apparatus. In this sense, thugs share various similarities with classic mafia organizations from Italy, China and Japan. However, a critical examination of the original source material and the socio-political context in India also shows that there are discrepancies between thugs and mafia organizations. The article concludes that this discrepancy likely has some basis in a less critical reading of the source material of other classical mafia organizations.