Well, not having any practical "field" experience of this, the following is based upon general thoughts I have given to it, so please, amend or scold as relevant.

I am no mafia don

Ok

There are 2 main areas to the successful completion of a protection racket and they are as follows:

1) intimidation
2) collection

Ok, lets deal with the intimidation.

All protection or extortion is about is pressure, be it physical violence, or psychological pressure. Intimidation is by far the riskiest element of a protection racket as it will most likely involve direct interaction between the extorter and the victim.

There are variables to consider, what kind of store is being targeted? Consideration ahs to be given to the secuirty, and area of the store, a small local grocers or supermarket would be ideal, esp when they are ran by families or ethnic groups. (not being racist btw)

Because of the low porfits of such enterprises, this means that a relatively sustained campaign of pressure will ensure a timely payout.

This can be summed up in the following maxim:

Cost/Risk of extorter conduct balancable against the actual demand.

Smashing windows, sending an employee to hospital, spray painting the store, etc will all cause the owner money be it in terms of direct cost or indirectly in terms of time wasted repairing etc.

How long does it take to smash a window? How easy is it? Wear a hoodie, good trainers, and you can smash the store window and be away from the scene of the crime in a maater of 2 mins.


Most likely, the sjop owner isgoing to be pretty unhappy to pay over hard earned money. However, if you systematically smahs his windows at a cost of 20 bucks each everday for a week, thats 140 dollars. If you lokf for 50 dollars per week protection money, then they are making a saving.

Id recommend pitching your extortion claim for less than you intend, dont get too greedy, remember you are taxing the owner, demand too much and you will run the business into the ground and that is killing the golden goose.

Step 2

Collection

Now, obviously this is an illegal enterprise and the worst thing a crook can do is establish a routine. If you do, then you are liable to get caugh. If you walk in the store every Tues, at 9 pm, your gonna get caught and busted.

Obviously setting a date is ideal to ensure payment, and to ensure that the taxed stays in line. However, I would not recommend making the collection from the actual store, its too obvious and lets face it, you are walking into the lions den. Rather, ensure that the money is left in a book store or record shop, or similar. Specify a particular book and page, or a particula record and ensure the money is stuffed in there.

Thus even if the cops bust you you just say

"gee my lucky day! I found 40 bucks in this book!"

How can they prove you got it through illegal means i.e. the extortion? Too much reasonable doubt.

Hope this preamble is of some use. Please, add amend or delete as required.

I really doubt anyone would pay you.

all they would have to do is call the cops

. You do this by walking into a store and talking to the owner. Usually the owners won't simply give in, but you can intimidate them by smashing up their stores (or their faces) until they start to see things your way. Sometimes the business owners will ask you to do a favor for them in exchange for a cut of the business. You might have to off a drug dealer who is scaring customers away from a bakery or take out a troublemaker who refuses to leave a hotel. These favor missions bring some welcome variety to the extortion game, but they're so simple and easy that they'll hardly have any effect on the way you play the game. Once you take over a business, you get a payout each week, and there are dozens of shops you can shake down all throughout the five boroughs of New York. Some stores are fronts for illegal rackets, such as brothels, gambling dens, and illegitimate importing operations, and you can buy out these rackets to further increase your weekly income.

lmfao

Godfather: The Game lol!

yeah exactly. or gta: vice city stories.

dude, unless you can convince people that calling the cops on you will get them killed, they'll laugh and call the cops next time you come around for money.

pretty much

What do YOU know about extortion.

Because I enjoyed the OP's *HYPOTHETICAL DISCUSSION* and found it to actually be written decently, I'll give my two cents:

The window thing isn't a bad idea... especially if the extorter can remain unconnected. And approach the business in that friendly sort of: "Hey, we see you've been having these problems, why not let us take care of it?" type thing. That way you can make it appear as though their is an outside threat, not related to you, that you're trying to help stop.

The one thing your plan needs is more manpower... I see at least three men necessary to this scheme:

- The Extorter. Does all the talking, implies everything, makes the deals, decides how things are going down, interacts with the business owner directly, BUT does not actually take any part in the criminal activity (as far as the eye can see). He's the organizer of the group.

- The Muscle. He'll smash the windows. He'll cause all the trouble. You (the extorter) told him to do all these things, but no one else knows that.

- The Collector. After the arrangements have been made and the trouble has died down, have this guy pick up your weekly tribute... weather you want to do this at the business or with a drop-off is up to you. Just the same, if payments start falling through, I wouldn't have this guy deal with that... after a talk with the Extorter, if things don't shape up, the Muscle comes back into play.

/ my input.

::goes back to playing GTA::