Extortion

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Loot and Extortion. Statues at Trago Mills, poking fun at the Inland Revenue. Loot and Extortion - geograph.org.uk - 88390.jpg
Loot and Extortion. Statues at Trago Mills, poking fun at the Inland Revenue.

Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded threats in order to obtain an unfair business advantage is also a form of extortion.

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Extortion is sometimes called the "protection racket" because the racketeers often phrase their demands as payment for "protection" from (real or hypothetical) threats from unspecified other parties; though often, and almost always, such "protection" is simply abstinence of harm from the same party, and such is implied in the "protection" offer. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime. In some jurisdictions, actually obtaining the benefit is not required to commit the offense, and making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. [1] Exaction refers not only to extortion or the demanding and obtaining of something through force, [2] [ better source needed ] but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant. [3] [ better source needed ]

The term extortion is often used metaphorically to refer to usury or to price-gouging, though neither is legally considered extortion. It is also often used loosely to refer to everyday situations where one person feels indebted against their will, to another, in order to receive an essential service or avoid legal consequences. Neither extortion nor blackmail requires a threat of a criminal act, such as violence, merely a threat used to elicit actions, money, or property from the object of the extortion. Such threats include the filing of reports (true or not) of criminal behavior to the police, revelation of damaging facts (such as pictures of the object of the extortion in a compromising position), etc. [1]

In law extortion can refer to political corruption, such as selling one's office or influence peddling, [4] but in general vocabulary the word usually first brings to mind blackmail or protection rackets. The logical connection between the corruption sense of the word and the other senses is that to demand bribes in one's official capacity is blackmail or racketeering in essence (that is, "you need access to this resource, the government restricts access to it through my office, and I will charge you unfairly and unlawfully for such access"). [5] Extortion is also known as shakedown, and occasionally exaction.

United States

Extortion is distinguished from robbery. In robbery, whether armed or not, the offender takes property from the victim by the immediate use of force or fear that force will be immediately used. Extortion, which is not limited to the taking of property, involves the verbal or written instillation of fear that something will happen to the victim if they do not comply with the extortionist's will. Another key distinction is that extortion always involves a verbal or written threat, [1] whereas robbery may not. In United States federal law, extortion can be committed with or without the use of force and with or without the use of a weapon. Violation of many state extortion statutes constitutes "racketeering activity" under Section 1961 of the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 USC

In blackmail, which always involves extortion, the extortionist threatens to reveal information about a victim or their family members that is potentially embarrassing, socially damaging, or incriminating unless a demand for money, property, or services is met. [6]

In the United States, extortion may also be committed as a federal crime across a computer system, phone, by mail, or in using any instrument of interstate commerce. Extortion requires that the individual sent the message willingly and knowingly as elements of the crime. The message only has to be sent (but does not have to reach the intended recipient) to commit the crime of extortion.

United Kingdom

England and Wales

In England and Wales extorting property and money by coercion is the offence of blackmail which covers any "unwarranted demand with menaces" including physical threats. See section 21 of the Theft Act 1968 plus sections 29 and 30 of the Larceny Act 1916. A group of people may also be committing conspiracy.

Scotland

Extortion is a common law crime in Scotland of using threat of harm to demand money, property or some advantage from another person. It does not matter whether the demand itself is legitimate (such as for money owed) as the crime can still be committed when illegitimate threats of harm are used. [7] [8]

Cyber extortion

Cyber extortion is when an individual or group uses the internet as a mean of demanding some sort of material gain.[ vague ] [9] The group or individual usually sends a company a threatening email stating that they have received confidential information about their company and will exploit a security leak or launch an attack that will harm the company's network. The message sent through the email usually demands money in exchange for the prevention of the attack. [10] [11]

Cases

In March 2008, Anthony Digati was arrested on federal charges of extortion through interstate communication. Digati put $50,000 into a variable life insurance policy by New York Life Insurance Company and wanted a return of $198,303.88. When the firm did not comply, he threatened to send out six million spam emails. He registered a domain in February 2008 that contained New York Life's name in the URL to display false public statements about the company and increased his demand to $3 million. [12] According to prosecutors, Digati's intent was not to inform or educate but he wanted to "damage the reputation of New York Life and cost the company millions of dollars in revenue,". [13] New York Life contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Digati was apprehended.

On February 15, 2011, Spanish police apprehended a man who attempted to blackmail Nintendo over customer information he had stolen. The man stole personal information about 4,000 users and emailed Nintendo Ibérica, Nintendo's Spanish division, and accused the company of data negligence. He threatened the company that he would make the information public and complain to the Spanish Data Agency if his demands were not met. After Nintendo ignored his demands, he published some of the information on an Internet forum. Nintendo notified authorities and the man was arrested in Málaga. No information has been revealed as to what the man demanded from Nintendo. [14]

On February 7, 2019, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owner of Amazon and The Washington Post and currently one of the world's wealthiest people, accused the National Enquirer and its parent company American Media, Inc., of attempting to extort him by threatening to reveal nude pictures of him unless he publicly stated that he "[has] no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI's coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces." This threat was in response to Bezos investigating the tabloid for publishing details about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, which led to Bezos and his wife Mackenzie announcing their divorce [15] on January 9 of that year. Bezos refused and posted the threat on Medium. [16]

On October 21, 2020, the news sources reported that roughly 40,000 patient records had been stolen from the Finnish private health care provider Vastaamo. [17] [18] [19] The extorters demanded 40 bitcoins — roughly 450,000 euros at the time — or the stolen patient data would be published. The extorters published 100 patient records a day on a Tor message board to add pressure for their demands. The leaked patient records contained patients' full names, home addresses, social security numbers, and the therapists' and doctors' notes from each session. [18] After the extortion of the company failed, the extorters sent victims an email demanding they pay either 200 euros within 24 hours or 500 euros in 48 hours in order to avoid publishing their sensitive personal data. [20] The company's security practices were found to be inadequate: the sensitive data was not encrypted [21] and apparently the system root password was very weak. [22] The patient records were first accessed by intruders in November 2018, while the security flaws continued to exist until March 2019. The president of Finland described the cyber attack as "relentlessly cruel." [19]

Similar crimes

See also

Related Research Articles

Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault.

Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cybercrime</span> Type of crime based in computer networks

Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or networks. These crimes involve the use of technology to commit fraud, identity theft, data breaches, computer viruses, scams, and expanded upon in other malicious acts. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems and networks to gain unauthorized access, steal sensitive information, disrupt services, and cause financial or reputational harm to individuals, organizations, and governments.

A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments at regular intervals. Each payment is called "protection money" or a "protection fee". An organized crime group determines an affordable or reasonable fee by negotiating with each of its payers, to ensure that each payer can pay the fee on a regular basis and on time. Protections rackets can vary in terms of their levels of sophistication or organization; it is not uncommon for their operations to emulate the structures or methods used by tax authorities within legitimate governments to collect taxes from taxpayers.

Sōkaiya (総会屋) are specialized racketeers unique to Japan, and often associated with the yakuza, who extort money from or blackmail companies by threatening to publicly humiliate companies and their management, usually in their annual meeting.

Ransomware is a type of malware that permanently blocks access to the victim's personal data unless a "ransom" is paid. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, more advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion. It encrypts the victim's files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them. In a properly implemented cryptoviral extortion attack, recovering the files without the decryption key is an intractable problem, and difficult-to-trace digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used for the ransoms, making tracing and prosecuting the perpetrators difficult.

Edgar Eugene Pearce is a British extortionist and bomber who was convicted of the Mardi Gra bombings, a three-year blackmail and terror campaign in the London area between December 1994 and April 1998.

Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. The term "racketeering" was coined by the Employers' Association of Chicago in June 1927 in a statement about the influence of organized crime in the Teamsters Union. Specifically, a racket was defined by this coinage as being a service that calls forth its own demand, and would not have been needed otherwise. Narrowly, it means coercive or fraudulent business practices; broadly, it can mean any criminal scheme or operation with ongoing or reoccurring profit, as defined in the 1970 U.S. RICO Act, which aimed to curtail the power of the Mafia and other organized crime.

Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, 547 U.S. 9 (2006), was a lengthy and high-profile U.S. legal case interpreting and applying the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO): a law originally drafted to combat the mafia and organized crime, the Hobbs Act: an anti-extortion law prohibiting interference with commerce by violence or threat of violence, and the Travel Act: a law prohibiting interstate travel in support of racketeering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hobbs Act</span> United States federal law

The Hobbs Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1951, is a United States federal law enacted in 1946 that prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion that affects interstate or foreign commerce, as well as conspiracies to do so. The Act is named for United States Representative Sam Hobbs (D-AL).

Ali Baba Budesh was a notorious Indian extortionist and underworld mobster, based in Bahrain. He was mostly active in 1990s. Fearing backlash from the Mumbai police, Budesh fled to Bahrain in the late eighties, where he opened up his new base of operations in the capital city of Manama. He died in coma as he was suffering from sugar related illness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sextortion</span> Non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim

Sextortion employs non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim. Sextortion refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion, as well as to the category of sexual exploitation in which threatened release of sexual images or information is the means of coercion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Hand (Chicago)</span> Criminal tactic used by gangsters

Black Hand extortion was a criminal tactic used by gangsters based in major cities in the United States. In Chicago, Black Hand extortion began around 1900 and had all but faded away by 1970, replaced by the Mafia. The Mafia was initially organized by Johnny Torrio and further organized by Al Capone into the extant Chicago Outfit sometime later. Black Handers in Chicago were mostly Italian men from Calabria and Sicily who would send anonymous extortion notes to their victims emblazoned with a feared old country symbol: the "Black Hand". The Black Hand was a precursor of organized crime, although it is still a tactic practiced by the Mafia and used in organized crime to this day. The Black Hand gangsters of this time period differed from the Mafia by lacking formally structured hierarchies and codes of conduct, and many were essentially one-man operations. Black Hand blackmail was also common in New York, Boston, and New Orleans. Victims would be threatened with being beaten, shot, or have their place of business bombed if they did not pay. Starting around 1909, Black Hand activity was causing difficulties for mob boss Big Jim Colosimo, a former Black Hand gangster and owner of brothels throughout Chicago. Colosimo's life was being threatened with demands for cash to ensure his physical safety. In an effort to fix the problem, he recruited Johnny Torrio, who was a member of New York's Five Points Gang at the time, to come to Chicago. Torrio would later become the famous successor to Big Jim Colosimo and mentor Al Capone as the organized crime ruler of Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesco bomb campaign</span> Attempted extortion against British supermarket chain Tesco in Bournemouth, England

The Tesco bomb campaign was an attempted extortion against British supermarket chain Tesco which started in Bournemouth, England, in August 2000 and led to one of the largest and most secretive operations ever undertaken by Dorset Police. During the campaign, a blackmailer identified by the pseudonym "Sally" sent letters to Tesco stores threatening to harm customers if his demands—for Clubcards, modified so that the holder could withdraw cash from ATMs—were not met.

The Chickens and the Bulls refers to an extortion ring that preyed on prominent, closeted, gay men in the 1960s. Corrupt police officers and police impersonators known as 'Bulls', used young often underage boys called 'chickens' to blackmail wealthy or important closeted men across the country. Over nearly a decade the ring victimized thousands, including "a navy admiral, two generals, a U.S. congressman, a prominent surgeon, an Ivy League professor, a prep school headmaster, and several well-known actors, singers, and television personalities" This went on until 1966 when Manhattan DA Frank Hogan announced that the ring had been broken up, after "at least 2 million dollars had been taken."

In July 2015, an unknown person or group calling itself "The Impact Team" announced they had stolen the user data of Ashley Madison, a commercial website billed as enabling extramarital affairs. The hacker(s) copied personal information about the site's user base and threatened to release users' names and personal identifying information if Ashley Madison would not immediately shut down. As evidence of the seriousness of the threat, the personal information of more than 2,500 users was initially released. The company initially denied that its records were insecure, but it continued to operate.

Ocasio v. United States, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court clarified whether the Hobbs Act's definition of conspiracy to commit extortion only includes attempts to acquire property from someone who is not a member of the conspiracy. The case arose when Samuel Ocasio, a former Baltimore, Maryland police officer, was indicted for participating in a kickback scheme with an automobile repair shop where officers would refer drivers of damaged vehicles to the shop in exchange for cash payments. Ocasio argued that he should not be found guilty of conspiring to commit extortion because the only property that was exchanged in the scheme was transferred from one member of the conspiracy to another, and an individual cannot be found guilty of conspiring to extort a co-conspirator.

Vastaamo was a Finnish private psychotherapy service provider founded in 2008. On 21 October 2020, Vastaamo announced that its patient database had been hacked. Private information obtained by the perpetrators was used in an attempt to extort Vastaamo and, later, its clients. The extorters demanded 40 bitcoins, roughly worth 450,000 euros at the time, and threatened to publish the records if the ransom was not paid. To add pressure to their demands, the extorters published hundreds of patient records a day on a Tor message board.

The Pedigree Chum dog food and Heinz extortion campaign was an attempted extortion against Pedigree Petfoods and Heinz, during which an extortionist contaminated tins of dog and baby food. Pedigree was advised by police to pay limited sums of money to the extortionist, while cash machines were put under surveillance. Heinz lost millions in sales and eventually offered a £100,000 reward, which the extortionist attempted to collect. However, he was arrested at the cashpoint, where police discovered the extortionist was former Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant Rodney Whitchelo.

Rodney Whitchelo was a British law enforcement officer and criminal convicted of blackmail and food contamination. He poisoned baby products as part of a plot to extort Heinz, causing a baby food scare in 1989. Whitchelo, who was dubbed the "consumer terrorist", committed his crimes while serving as a detective of the Scotland Yard.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lindgren, James (April 1984). "Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail". Columbia Law Review. 84 (3): 670–717. doi:10.2307/1122502. JSTOR   1122502.
  2. ↑ "Exaction - definition of exaction by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia". Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
  3. ↑ "Exact definition - Dictionary - MSN Encarta". Encarta Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2009-12-01.
  4. ↑ "Extortion". Investopedia. Retrieved 2021-12-05.
  5. ↑ "Extortion - Essential Elements and the Broader Reach of RICO". Stimmel Law.
  6. ↑ Posner, Richard A. (1992). "Blackmail, Privacy, and Freedom of Contract". University of Pennsylvania Law Review. 141 (5): 1817–1847. doi:10.2307/3312575. JSTOR   3312575.
  7. ↑ The Scottish Beat Officer's Companion (6th ed.). Jane's Police Review. 29 June 2010. p. 85. ISBN   978-07106-2928-9.
  8. ↑ Jury Manual (2018 ed.). Parliament House, Edinburgh: Judicial Institute for Scotland. 9 November 2018. p. 46.1. Archived from the original on 30 January 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
  9. ↑ Sulkowski, Adam J. "Cyber-Extortion: Duties and Liabilities Related to the Elephant in the Server Room". SSRN Electronic Journal. 2007: 101–144.
  10. ↑ "Computer Security Ethics and Privacy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-11. Retrieved 2016-06-29.
  11. ↑ "Brand.com's Mike Zammuto Discusses Meetup.com Extortion". Dailyglobe.com. 2014-03-05. Archived from the original on 2014-04-12. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
  12. ↑ "Alleged Cyber-Extortionist Indicted: Feds Say Anthony Digati Tried To Chill, Defame Business On Internet To Extract $200,000 In Bizarre Social-Networking Plot". Patrickpretty.com. 2010-04-22. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
  13. ↑ Gendar, Alison (2010-03-08). "Anthony Digati arrested for allegedly threatening New York Life with email spam attack". NY Daily News. Archived from the original on 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
  14. ↑ Woollacott, Emma (2011-02-15). "Police arrest man over Nintendo extortion". TG Daily. Archived from the original on 2017-02-01. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
  15. ↑ Bezos, Jeffrey (2019-01-09). "Jeff Bezos announces divorce from MacKenzie Bezos after 25 years together". The Washington Post.
  16. ↑ Bezos, Jeffrey (2019-02-07). "No thank you, Mr. Pecker". Medium. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  17. ↑ "Psychotherapy centre's database hacked, patient info held ransom". Yle Uutiset. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  18. 1 2 "Extortionist publishes more sensitive data on psychotherapy centres' patients". Yle Uutiset. 22 October 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  19. 1 2 Sipilä, Jarkko (27 October 2020). "Therapy patients in Finland blackmailed after data breach". CNN. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
  20. ↑ "Psychotherapy centre data breach victims receive extortion emails". Yle Uutiset. 24 October 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  21. ↑ "Tietoturva | Terapiapotilaisiin kohdistunut tietomurto on voinut vaarantaa tuhansien ihmisten tietosuojan, kyseessä on täysin "poikkeuksellinen tapahtuma"". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). 2020-10-22. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
  22. ↑ "Kiristäjä julkaisi suomalaisten arkaluontoisia terapiakeskusteluja – vaatii 450 000:ta euroa tai jatkoa seuraa". Ilta-Sanomat (in Finnish). 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
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