Do you know that extortion is a crime?

Unfortunately, victims, especially owners and tenants of restaurants, for various reasons, often do not report that someone is extorting them, so the police officers try to encourage them to make a different decision and report the crime to the police.

Slovenian police officers often encounter extortion, when perpetrators of crimes use violent methods, such as threats or physical force, to demand payment for security services from business owners or tenants and owners of more profitable inns (the so-called racketeering). In the background, there may be actual or even fictional debts.

Extortionists demand the payment of large sums from entrepreneurs in order to "enable" the normal operation of the inn or business. Extortion is carried out by individuals or groups of extortionists. From our experience, extortionists demand more and more money from the victim, so paying such debt or bail is not a solution.

Report extortion to the police

We urge all potential victims to report such criminal offences to the police. This can be done in several ways: by calling the police phone number 113 or anonymous phone number 080-1200, or by personally going to the nearest police station.

The police will do everything to track down the perpetrators or extortionists, protect the victims and ensure their safety.

Extortion (Article 218 of the Criminal Code)

(1) Whoever, with the intention of obtaining an illegal financial benefit for himself or someone else, forces someone to do or omit something to the detriment of his own or someone else's property, or whoever collects a debt in such a manner, shall be punished by imprisonment up to five years.

(2) Whoever, with the intention of obtaining an illegal financial benefit for himself or someone else, threatens another person with disclosure of any matter concerning him or his relatives that could damage his honour or reputation, and thereby compels him to do or omit something to the detriment of his own property or someone else's property, or whoever collects a debt in such a manner, shall be punished to the same extent.

(3) If the act referred to in the first or second paragraph of this article is committed by two or more persons, or if it is committed with the use of weapons or dangerous tools or in a particularly cruel and humiliating manner, the perpetrator shall be punished with imprisonment from one to eight years.