Protection Racket - Real-world Examples

Real-world Examples

• During the late medieval and early modern era in the Scottish Marches, local farmers would often need to make payments to the Border Reivers as a form of protection money to ensure they are not attacked. These agreements were called "Black mal", where mal was an Old Norse word meaning agreement. The word blackmail entered the English language in 1530 as a result, but the word's meaning has changed since.
• In Melbourne, Australia, Alphonse Gangitano ran a protection racket along the famous Lygon Street during the 1990s.
• In Sicily, Italy, it is estimated that around 80% of businesses of the city of Palermo pay pizzo, or protection money, to the Mafia.
• In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, when the Mexican Drug War escalated in 2008, criminal groups saw their financial backbone threatened and began asking for racketeering money to businesses ranging from convenience stores to clubs and restaurants with the threat of burning down the business, kidnapping the owners or killing everyone inside with assault rifles.
• In the post-Soviet Russia, law enforcement was too underfunded and poorly trained to protect businesses and enforce contracts. Most businesses had to join a protection racket (known as a krysha, the Russian word for "roof") run by local gangsters.
• In the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 60s the Kray twins ran protection rackets in the East End of London.