Ali Arbievich Maduev was born in a Karaganda prison, in the Kazakh SSR, the fourth child of a Chechen man convicted of resisting deportation and a Korean woman convicted of speculation. After his release, Maduev's father abandoned the family. Maduev began to steal at the age of six, and in August 1974, he received his first prison term by the Karasay District Court in Almaty Region, whom gave him 6 years for complicity of theft. After leaving prison in 1980, Maduev engaged in various thefts and robberies, for which he was given another 15 years imprisonment in February 1981.