Extortion: What It Is, the Penalties and How to Act as Victim or Accused

Extortion is an offence that combines violence or intimidation with a property element: forcing someone to do something that harms them financially. Governed by Art. 243 of the Criminal Code, it is punished with 1 to 5 years in prison. As criminal lawyers experienced in extortion, we assist both victims and accused persons.

What Is Extortion?

Art. 243 CP punishes anyone who, with an intention of gain, compels another through violence or intimidation to carry out or omit a legal act or transaction to the detriment of their assets. The key elements are:

• Violence or intimidation: threats of death, of disclosing secrets, of reporting to the authorities, of physical violence.
• Legal act: signing a document, transferring money, handing over an asset, waiving rights.
• Loss of assets: the victim suffers economic harm.
• Intention of gain: the extortionist seeks a benefit for themselves or another.

Types of Extortion

Sextortion: threatening to circulate intimate photos or videos unless a sum is paid. It is the most frequent type at present and especially affects young people. It may concur with offences against privacy (Art. 197.7 CP).

Corporate blackmail: threatening a business owner with revealing irregularities (tax fraud, irregular employment) unless they pay or hand over shares.

Extortion in a drug context: the collection of debts through threats of violence. Drug-trafficking organisations use it systematically.

Procedural extortion: "If you don't pay, I'll report you for gender violence / sexual assault / fraud". Using the judicial system as a tool of intimidation.

Penalties

• Basic offence: 1 to 5 years in prison.
• Concurrence with threats: if the threats are of an evil amounting to an offence, the penalties are added together.
• Organisation: if committed within a criminal organisation, aggravated penalties apply.
• Sextortion: extortion + disclosure of secrets = possible concurrence with accumulated penalties.

If You Are a Victim: What to Do

1. Do NOT pay. Payment does not guarantee the threats will stop. Usually, paying invites further demands.
2. Preserve all the evidence: screenshots of messages, recordings of calls (it is lawful to record conversations you take part in), emails, transfers.
3. Report it to the police or the Guardia Civil. Provide all the evidence. If it is online sextortion, also report it to the Technological Investigation Unit.
4. Contact a criminal lawyer. We assist you from the complaint through to the trial, including the compensation claim.

If You Are Accused: Defence Strategies

• The lawful exercise of a right: claiming a real debt or demanding performance of a contract is not extortion, even if done forcefully.
• There was no intimidation: hard negotiation or a heated argument do not reach the level of "intimidation" required by the offence.
• Absence of an intention of gain: if there was no pursuit of economic benefit, there is no extortion.
• Police entrapment: in undercover operations, where the officer induced the conduct.

We defend both victims and accused persons in extortion cases. Call us on +34 91 078 65 74.