Legal Definitions - extort

To extort means to unlawfully obtain money, property, services, or information from someone by using threats, intimidation, or other forms of coercion that overcome their ability to resist.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Example 1: Financial Extortion through Blackmail
  Imagine a former employee who possesses sensitive, embarrassing information about their old company. They contact the company's CEO and threaten to release this information to the media unless the company pays them a substantial sum of money. The CEO feels compelled to pay to protect the company's reputation.

  This illustrates extortion because the former employee is unlawfully attempting to obtain money from the company by using a threat (releasing sensitive information) to coerce the payment.

• Example 2: Coercion for Services or Favors
  Consider a local crime boss who approaches a small business owner. The crime boss tells the owner that if they don't provide free catering services for the boss's private events, their business will mysteriously suffer "unfortunate accidents," like broken windows or damaged inventory.

  This is an example of extortion because the crime boss is unlawfully obtaining services (free catering) from the business owner by using threats of harm to their property to force compliance.

• Example 3: Digital Ransomware Attack
  A cybercriminal gains unauthorized access to a city government's computer systems and encrypts all their critical data, including citizen records and infrastructure management files. The criminal then sends a message demanding a large cryptocurrency payment in exchange for the decryption key, threatening to permanently delete all the data if the payment is not made by a specific deadline.

  This demonstrates extortion because the cybercriminal is unlawfully obtaining money (the cryptocurrency payment) by using the threat of permanent data loss to coerce the city government into paying the ransom.