Extortion

Extortion is a crime in which one person takes advantage of another person against his or her will by means of threat of violence or threat of harm of any kind to the person. Extortionists typically obtain money or other property from the victim by threatening violence or by threatening to damage the property of a person or a person's reputation. Extortion thus differs from fraud, in which the benefit to the criminal is obtained by deception and lies rather than by threat.

An extortion case requires a threat to harm a victim or the property or reputation of a victim to obtain any kind of benefit. A common form of threat in an extortion case is to harm a person physically. However, physical harm is not always necessary. It may be sufficient to threaten to expose a secret that would harm the reputation of the intended victim or put a person in fear by any means. The threat may be related to a person's family, business or career, or sexual affairs.

The benefit gained from threatening the victim is typically money or other property. However, the benefit may be legal advantages for the extortionist. In extortion, the victim consents, although unwillingly, to surrender money or property to commit an unlawful act.

A number of different methods are used in extortion. Some of these methods may be called by specific names and coded as different offenses depending on the country in which the extortion takes place. One form of extortion is blackmail, which refers to a threat to reveal secret information that may damage a person's reputation. The revealed information can be either true or false, or legal or illegal. The important factor is that revealing the information may put the person in fear and damage his or her reputation; the blackmailer demands something from the victim in return for not revealing the information.

Ransom is another form of extortion. In a ransom case, the extortionist holds something of great value to the victim, often a person who is a family member or other loved one, to be returned or released only on fulfillment of a condition. Kidnapping and extortion are often committed together.

Extortion is a typical tool for organized criminal groups to obtain money. They extort local businesses, drug dealers, or other crime groups in their territory with the threat of harm. Organized crime groups sometimes collect money from local businesses under the name of “protection.” Business corporations, especially in the developing world, survive under the threat of mafia-type violence or other harm and must pay the mafia to continue their activities. Extortion may occur as a form of corruption together with bribery because in addition to mafia-like private entities, extortion may be exercised by corrupt bureaucrats. Both forms of corruption have highly negative effects on economic development. Just as unrecorded or unregistered economic activities can be affected by mafia-type extortion, likewise the formal economy can be [Page 267]adversely affected through bureaucratic extortion by corrupt officials.