Introduction

Abstract

For most of us extortion rackets will never blight our lives. This is lucky given the severe financial, psychological and social consequences extortion brings with it. It is also lucky as nobody is ever very far from extortion. A recent European review of extortion racketeering found that extortion rackets exist in every EU member state and the same holds for almost all countries in the world. Whilst ubiquitous, in most countries extortion rackets are an isolated phenomenon, isolated geographically or ethnically, or reserved for a criminal underclass of prostitution, drug dealing and gambling. In the communities where extortion takes hold it wreaks havoc, destroying livelihoods, if not lives, and undermining community cohesion. At the same time, extortion rackets can establish themselves within communities completely unknown to the rest of society. This combination of longevity and invisibility is a unique feature of extortion rackets, making them an interesting social phenomenon as well as a very-hard-to-research criminological phenomenon.