Current State of Extorting Businesses

[Martyn]

2 hours ago, Ink said:

I've lived in the United States my whole life, have owned businesses, and have a pretty diverse OOC network of people across multiple states/cities who range from owning businesses to being involved in questionably legal businesses. 

You know what is not a threat any average business owner in Los Angeles has to deal with? The god damn mafia showing up and asking for chump change. This isn't the 1960's. That era is over. This isn't the heart of New York City in the early 90's. 

In the real world--at least in the most developed parts of the world--the consequences are just too high for extorting businesses. It would make no sense for criminal enterprises of any degree of professionalism to engage in petty extortion of corner shops, corporate-owned 24/7s (like what?), and so on. Real life organized crime syndicates these days engage in far more profitable and far more easily hidden criminal revenue streams, and use legal businesses to launder the income. 

This isn't Serbia. This isn't Russia. This is a representation of Los Angeles. In the United States we have a highly sophisticated, competent FBI who is dedicated almost entirely to combating racketeering. Our legal system is not thoroughly corrupt like it is in many European countries; if the FBI catches you on racketeering your ass is going away for 10-20 years at minimum. If you go and smash up a business and get caught, you've just served to expose your associates and bring heat on your organization, and for what?

I've seen people in this thread purport that extortion is "unique" roleplay. I will respectfully disagree: there is nothing unique about it. It's generic, it's boring, everyone does it, it's been on every GTA server since the beginning. It requires virtually no creativity. It doesn't create roleplay, it's a blatant display of hijacking people's roleplay. From what I've seen on this server (especially with the recent case of two legal characters being CK'd over extortion after having paid and had the price ratcheted up on them and other families come to extort them), extortion is just a one-way street to having your character treated as an ATM or otherwise harassed, beaten, threatened, sabotaged, or CK'd. This isn't fun roleplay for the people on the receiving end of it. It's not dynamic roleplay. It's scripted and for the average legal roleplayer there is no recourse.

Saying "this is an IC issue" is reductive because our game world lacks the same consequences that would realistically be in place for extortion. With how many people are extorting and how much stuff the PD has on its plate, it's unlikely there is any real opportunity for legal characters to actually get real investigative help. Unlike in real life where extortion would almost always be met with successful police action and safety for the one being extorted, in the game world a person reporting extortion is just an excuse for the faction to escalate the roleplay. 

Summary: Extortion roleplay is unoriginal, lacks creativity, is little more than bullying. It takes advantage of unrealistic parts of our game world and exploits them to give criminal characters an advantage in lieu of finding interesting, organic, and creative ways to portray realistic criminal enterprise. Currently with extortion almost all consequences fall squarely on legal characters who did not opt-in to this treatment, while very little consequences present themselves for the criminal roleplayers. It is a blatant disregard of IC fear of consequences on behalf of these criminals who know OOCly that the odds of them getting in any real legal trouble are slim, and criminal roleplayers fragrantly hide behind the CK system to allow themselves to clean up any roleplay they make a mess of. This type of roleplay is an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of the United States in the modern year and represents something more akin to developing countries or far more corrupt nations on the other side of the world.

I will finish with a scene from the Sopranos which summarizes this well enough. Notice how these two fine gangsters do not proceed to say "let me talk to da owna or I burna dis coffee shoppa down an' killa you a wife."

 

 

 

Preach, there's nothing that ruins immersion more than having to deal with some 90's Sopranos mobsters coming into your publicly open business to "Speak to the manager" and then rough him up in front of everybody because they're both ICly and OOCly untouchable. You go to the police and Jimmy Two Fingers is back in your business within a week to put a bullet through you for going to the cops. And this is a daily occurrence. If this was to happen sometimes I could take it with a grain of salt and figure out its just people portraying unintelligent criminal characters on purpose for fun. But unfortunately, it really isn't.

 

Why are criminals not allowed to shoot someone in the middle of the street in daylight even if there's nobody around? Because realistically it would be a busy street. (That's the argument always given when you look at reports, you have to RP realistically and simply because there are no actual characters around to witness your crime you're still expected to RP and pretend like it would be a busy street) Why are criminals allowed to extort your business openly, visibly and with no regard of their personal safety. Because our Los Santos PD can't do anything about it effectively? But would the same standards apply now as to where we would HAVE to pretend like the police is powerful to ensure for meaningful, immersive and realistic roleplay because this is a large city? Why are we working with double standards? 

 

The people who keep claiming to solve this ICly are also the same people who wouldn't take a CK if their character finally ran into the wrong person to extort and gets himself killed over it. It's worrisome how much of a play to win attitude they have whilst trying their best to hide it and come across as if they're sitting on their high and mighty horse. Come down off of it and work on a solution with people who suffer from horrible roleplay like this so we can improve things for everyone and not just for a select few. Enforcing realism is good in the long run and will steer the community in the right direction on the long term.

[Kassandra]

I agree with Ink, but also I do see Lemonade's point in that, realistically, most businesses in LS are indeed run by local people. Perhaps IC we should simply consider that the sort of consolodation that butchered 'the little guy', independent business owners and self-employed persons, didn't take root in LS the same way it did across the rest of the US. 

 

Honestly, were I running a business I wouldn't even mind being extorted on the condition it brought actual RP to my business. Hell, I ran a bar on another server years ago that was extorted by a local mob and I loved it because my bar became a regular hangout for them. 

I think that's the clincher, it should be more about the RP is generates than any huge amount of income.

 

Honestly, despite this thread, the last 2 months at PD I've only once had someone report an attempted Extortion and I've never heard of a company being extorted out of business.

[Ink]

Just now, Kassandra said:

Honestly, were I running a business I wouldn't even mind being extorted on the condition it brought actual RP to my business. Hell, I ran a bar on another server years ago that was extorted by a local mob and I loved it because my bar became a regular hangout for them. 

I think that's the clincher, it should be more about the RP is generates than any huge amount of income.

 

That's a big thing for me about all of this. A lot of the (strictly criminal) roleplayers in this thread speaking in defense of extortion RP seem to imply it "creates" roleplay. Problem is? I've not seen it actually create roleplay that isn't just criminals bullying relatively helpless legal roleplayers. Most of these "protection" rackets don't actually involve any protection, the mobs don't fight each other for trying to muscle in on their businesses 9 times out of 10, and multiple mobs will extort the same business. They don't roleplay in the business unless to come in and cause trouble, and the more you roleplay with the criminal RPers the more likely your character is going to get attacked, CKed, or otherwise harassed more. 

If these criminal roleplayers extorted businesses, then maintained a presence, protected them, brought people in to those businesses, helped spread word of mouth around them, and basically served as a symbiotic force (as real world mafia protection actually works... back when it happened in the 20th century lmao) then it'd be more interesting to RP for all involved.

[Lemonade319]

12 minutes ago, Martyn said:

 

Preach, there's nothing that ruins immersion more than having to deal with some 90's Sopranos mobsters coming into your publicly open business to "Speak to the manager" and then rough him up in front of everybody because they're both ICly and OOCly untouchable. You go to the police and Jimmy Two Fingers is back in your business within a week to put a bullet through you for going to the cops. And this is a daily occurrence. If this was to happen sometimes I could take it with a grain of salt and figure out its just people portraying unintelligent criminal characters on purpose for fun. But unfortunately, it really isn't.

 

Why are criminals not allowed to shoot someone in the middle of the street in daylight even if there's nobody around? Because realistically it would be a busy street. (That's the argument always given when you look at reports, you have to RP realistically and simply because there are no actual characters around to witness your crime you're still expected to RP and pretend like it would be a busy street) Why are criminals allowed to extort your business openly, visibly and with no regard of their personal safety. Because our Los Santos PD can't do anything about it effectively? But would the same standards apply now as to where we would HAVE to pretend like the police is powerful to ensure for meaningful, immersive and realistic roleplay because this is a large city? Why are we working with double standards? 

 

The people who keep claiming to solve this ICly are also the same people who wouldn't take a CK if their character finally ran into the wrong person to extort and gets himself killed over it. It's worrisome how much of a play to win attitude they have whilst trying their best to hide it and come across as if they're sitting on their high and mighty horse. Come down off of it and work on a solution with people who suffer from horrible roleplay like this so we can improve things for everyone and not just for a select few. Enforcing realism is good in the long run and will steer the community in the right direction on the long term.

I really don’t understand what it is you guys want. If you’re getting bad RP in an extortion, report it. Why should criminals stop something the is working when no one is stopping them? I agree this type of extortion /should/ be hard to pull off, but why should I pretend it’s harder than it is? If the police did whatever reason struggle to tackle a certain crime that doesn’t mean I should limit myself to give them a chance. 
 

From what I’ve seen one good detective or a small team in the FBI/FIB whatever it is actually investigated deeply into these issues they could have easily sent a lot of people down. With the way you claim certain extortions are going down, in front of people in broad daylight a good team would have no issue building a case on these people for this crime and more.

[Kassandra]

10 minutes ago, Ink said:

 

That's a big thing for me about all of this. A lot of the (strictly criminal) roleplayers in this thread speaking in defense of extortion RP seem to imply it "creates" roleplay. Problem is? I've not seen it actually create roleplay that isn't just criminals bullying relatively helpless legal roleplayers. Most of these "protection" rackets don't actually involve any protection, the mobs don't fight each other for trying to muscle in on their businesses 9 times out of 10, and multiple mobs will extort the same business. They don't roleplay in the business unless to come in and cause trouble, and the more you roleplay with the criminal RPers the more likely your character is going to get attacked, CKed, or otherwise harassed more. 

If these criminal roleplayers extorted businesses, then maintained a presence, protected them, brought people in to those businesses, helped spread word of mouth around them, and basically served as a symbiotic force (as real world mafia protection actually works... back when it happened in the 20th century lmao) then it'd be more interesting to RP for all involved.

I feel like part of that is on the ones being extorted too though.

If you're extorting me, you're giving me a damn contact number because if I do get muscled on by the Peckerwoods next door when I'm paying my dues to the Mafia, I expect to actually BE protected else my money is going to whoever can actually protect me.

 

And I don't think the illegal rpers should be blaming the business owner for that, either, it's just common sense. 

Maybe a little bit of clear ooc communication between the owner and the extorters would be good here to plan things their crew can do at their place of business. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by Kassandra

[Blöp]

This is completely an in-character issue and you should solve it in-character. As a civilian business owner, you have a million ways to deal with this situation. Just a few ideas:

 

- Approach the LSPD as a group and ask for help.
- Approach the government and ask for heavier laws against extortion.
- In case both fail, make peaceful demonstrations. 
- Hire security companies to protect your venues.
- Install CCTVs.

 

Until an issue can be solved in-character, we don't really need new rules against it in my opinion. As someone wrote before, the laws against extortion are extremely slight currently, but just in real-life, you can change this. Make protests, write emails to the government, ask for change. Ask the LSPD to utilize more detectives around extortion cases, help them to solve the cases faster. 

 

Even a bad situation can be a good opportunity for roleplay.

[A_Acko]

 

 I'm not representing the LSPD with this comment, but I'll share my personal opinion as I've been dealing with these cases on the server for the past three months.

 

4 hours ago, eTaylor said:

You have a store full of cameras in a nice neighborhood, it shouldn’t be so difficult for police to do something. The punishment should be harsher, and police should have more options for their investigations. You don’t need the FIB, it’s not profitable to do extortion IRL the way people do IG because of legal consequences but we lack that. Adding significant legal consequences would be a better start than just letting everyone CK each other

 

For the points you mentioned, unfortunately, that is not as easy as it sounds like. I agree on the fact that the punishment for this type of crime should be harsher.

 

Investigating cases such as extortion and racketeering require  a good amount of knowledge and patience. While the act of extortion is simple, proving this in case/court files can be extremely difficult. There is criteria that needs to be met for racketeering and extortion charges.

A detective thats keeps himself busy with these sorts of cases needs to have extensive knowledge and interest in protection rackets, fencing rackets, loan sharking rackets.... OCG's, their structure and ways of operating etc...

Not everyone has the interest in this sort of roleplay. A single (major) casefile on extortion takes alot of time and effort to investigate. The problem here is that most of these suspects do this on a day-to-day basis. 

 

I don't think this is an IC issue. It's an OOC issue. The community wanted high standards for the LSPD. This is what the community got in return. There is a decent amount of detectives, but internally I think there is a huge lack of interest in this type of crime solving, because it asks alot of OOC time, patience, knowledge on the subject and skills. 

 

As a solution I think there should be OOC rules or limits in place as to how many businesses a certain person or faction can extort if this issue is to be solved. This way, the LSPD will have time to properly investigate/complete a case.

 

 

I'll quote what Ink said, because these facts are on point and pretty much sum up everything:

4 hours ago, Ink said:

 This is a representation of Los Angeles. In the United States we have a highly sophisticated, competent FBI who is dedicated almost entirely to combating racketeering. 

3 hours ago, Ink said:

In real life, investigative agencies can afford to have a team of 10 officers dedicated strictly to monitoring one organization and one organization alone with these officers pulling 50-60 hour work weeks doing nothing but watching their every step and building a case. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by A_Acko

[Lemonade319]

7 minutes ago, A_Acko said:

 

 I'm not representing the LSPD with this comment, but I'll share my personal opinion as I've been dealing with these cases on the server for the past three months.

 

 

For the points you mentioned, unfortunately, that is not as easy as it sounds like. I agree on the fact that the punishment for this type of cime should be harsher.

 

Investigating cases such as extortion and racketeering require  a good amount of knowledge and patience. While the act of extortion is simple, proving this in case/court files can be extremely difficult. There is criteria that needs to be met for racketeering and extortion charges.

A detective thats keeps himself busy with these sorts of cases needs to have extensive knowledge and interest in protection rackets, fencing rackets, loan sharking rackets.... OCG's, their structure and ways of operating etc...

Not everyone has the interest in this sort of roleplay. A single (major) casefile on extortion takes alot of time and effort to investigate. The problem here is that most of these suspects do this on a day-to-day basis. 

 

I don't think this is an IC issue. It's an OOC issue. The community wanted high standards for the LSPD. This is what the community got in return. There is a decent amount of detectives, but internally I think there is a huge lack of interest in this type of crime solving, because it asks alot of OOC time, patience, knowledge on the subject and skills. 

 

As a solution I think there should be OOC rules or limits in place as to how many businesses a certain person or faction can extort if this issue is to be solved. This way, the LSPD will have time to properly investigate/complete a case.

 

 

I'll quote what Ink said, because these facts are on point and pretty much sum up everything:

So because no one in the LSPD wants to tackle this issue there should be OOC limitations on criminals? If no one had an interest in arresting drug dealers does that mean there should be ooc limits on drugs in the server? 
 

if you have “no one” in the LSPD that wants to tackle organised crime, which is a problem on the server why should said organised crime groups be limited? How do you explain that ICly? In my opinion someone in PD needs to take initiative of this problem.

[A_Acko]

Just now, Lemonade319 said:

So because no one in the LSPD wants to tackle this issue there should be OOC limitations on criminals? If no one had an interest in arresting drug dealers does that mean there should be ooc limits on drugs in the server? 
 

if you have “no one” in the LSPD that wants to tackle organised crime, which is a problem on the server why should said organised crime groups be limited? How do you explain that ICly? In my opinion someone in PD needs to take initiative of this problem.

 

I don't think someone in PD can solve this problem by shouting: ''Hey, join this division to investigate X type of crime! It's fun!''.

 

In my opinion, the illegal-legal balance needs to be kept in place by server administration and not by the LSPD.

[Lemonade319]

Just now, A_Acko said:

 

I don't think someone in PD can solve this problem by shouting: ''Hey, join this division to investigate X type of crime! It's fun!''.

 

In my opinion, the illegal-legal balance needs to be kept in place by server administration and not by the LSPD.

You’re in the PD and think it’s the admins who should be policing crime?