Extortion Racketeering in Europe:Problem Dimension and Possible Countermeasures

Extortion racketeering is an efficacious instrument available to organized criminal groups to infiltrate the legal economy. As for corruption, extortion racketeering weakens community integrity and, also the national state power. A successful action against this crime has a symbolic meaning for public institutions which reaffirm their “monopoly in the use of force” against local (or no-local) criminal organizations. What damage can this phenomenon do to European Member States? How can this be classified according to the different national experiences? Is there anything in common across the different EU Member States? What can be done in order to tackle extortion racketeering? This paper presents the results of a study carried out by TRANSCRIME for the European Commission providing some answers to the previous questions.