Criminal Lawyers for Blackmail and Extortion

The blackmail offence, technically called conditional threats with demand of amount or reward, is typified in Art. 171.2 CP. It sanctions whoever, with the intent to obtain an amount of money or any other consideration, threatens another person with revealing or disseminating facts concerning their private life or family relationships even if these are not true. The protected legal interest is triple: personal freedom as the capacity to decide without illicit pressures, the honor and privacy of the victim, and the security of patrimonial relations. Consolidated Supreme Court case-law has established that the type is consummated by the mere formulation of the conditional threat, without need for the victim to yield to blackmail nor for the demanded payment to materialize.

The commissive modalities are diverse. The threat of revelation of intimate information is the classical modality: disclosure to family members, employers or social networks of facts about sexual orientation, infidelities, reproachable conducts, delicate economic situation or conflictive family matters. Sextortion threatens to distribute intimate sexual material (photographs, videos, conversations) voluntarily obtained in consensual relationships or through device hacking. The threat of false complaint consists of blackmailing by filing inexistent or exaggerated reports or complaints to obtain economic compensation. The threat of revealing business secrets (Art. 278 CP) operates in labor or unfair-competition contexts. The threat with information dissemination through mass media (press, social networks, internet) configures aggravated modality when specific circumstances concur. The demanded amount can be monetary, in kind, or consist of sexual favors, in which latter case it concurs with offences against sexual freedom.

The penalties are graduated according to outcome. The consummated modality with payment obtainment (Art. 171.2 first part CP) carries 2 to 4 years of prison. The attempted or unsatisfied modality (Art. 171.2 second part CP) is punished with 4 months to 2 years of prison or fine. The threats with mass-media dissemination aggravate the penalty in upper half when made through press, radio, television or any other social communication medium, or when the victim is a minor or especially vulnerable person. When organized-group action concurs, the criminal-organization aggravating factors (Arts. 570 bis and 570 ter CP) can multiply penalties. Accessory consequences include prohibition of approach to the victim (Art. 48 CP), civil liability for moral damages (frequently substantial due to honor and dignity impact), economic reparation of paid amounts where applicable, and criminal-record registration with effects for public employment, administrative authorizations and residence permits.

Technical defense is built on four axes. First, the challenge of typical concurrence: the criminal type requires concrete conditional threat with unequivocal patrimonial demand; legitimate commercial negotiations, habitual business pressures, warnings in family disputes or extrajudicial transaction proposals do not integrate blackmail when the typical element of threat with harmful-information revelation does not concur (STS 374/2014). Second, the absence of intent: when the active subject believed they were exercising a legitimate right (collection of pending debt, claim of appropriate compensation, legitimate report of real crime with mediation proposal), error of prohibition (Art. 14 CP) or absence of defrauding intent can operate. Third, the challenge of digital authorship attribution: when blackmail occurs through social networks, instant messaging, fake profiles or anonymous means, proof of concrete attribution to the accused requires computer forensic analysis (hacked accounts, identity impersonation, shared sessions). Fourth, the procedural challenge: evidentiary nullities due to telephone interceptions without sufficient motivation, defects in chain of custody of electronic communications, irregularities in legal assistance to the detained.

In current forensic practice, blackmail proceedings have diversified with digitization. Cyber modalities (sextortion, blackmail via WhatsApp/Telegram, threats of social-media dissemination) have multiplied proceedings above classical in-person blackmail. Specialized police units —BIT-Technological Investigation Brigade of the National Police and GDT-Telematic Crime Group of the Civil Guard— intervene in these cases through forensic communication analysis, IP-address tracking, account identification and, in transnational scenarios, cooperation with Europol and Interpol. Organic Law 8/2021 on integral protection of childhood, Organic Law 10/2022 on sexual freedom, Directive 2024/1385/EU on violence against women and Organic Law 1/2025 on Justice Service Efficiency have hardened the regime. At Alonso Sala, our criminal lawyers specialized in blackmail intervene in a dual function: as private prosecution on behalf of victims, we request urgent precautionary measures, coordinate with specialized police units for perpetrator identification, and articulate civil reparation strategies; as defenders of the accused, we articulate defenses based on challenge of typical concurrence, absence of intent or evidentiary nullities. In both roles, immediate action is critical to preserve digital evidence and limit damage scope.