History Main / ProtectionRacket

** [[OneWorldOrder The World Government]] that nominally opposes piracy is shown to have [[MirroringFactions their own feudal/mob mentality]] to its member states. Membership, including military protection, is only active so long as tribute is paid up, and they're just as unforgiving as the pirates. Delinquent payers are left to the mercy of pirates, who the World Government indirectly ''support'' via [[{{Privateer}} the Warlords of the Sea]] and by the nobility purchasing the enslaved.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': In addition to regular pirating activities like plundering, some pirate crews also get into the racketeering business. Examples include:

A criminal, usually part of TheMafia or an ethnic equivalent, offers protection to the neighborhood. He will approach local small businesses and [[ShameIfSomethingHappened comment on their "nice things" and how they wouldn't want anything to happen to them]]. Most likely the person he is "protecting" them from is himself. The catch is that he will extort regular fees from the person they are "protecting", and if the character does not pay up, the criminal will make it clear who exactly they are "protecting" them from. Sometimes however NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters genuinely do protect the businesses from some outside threat, such as rival criminals, {{delinquents}} and corrupt authorities.

* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'': The slums of Kugamayama City are run by various slumlord gangs who get their operating funds from this. Akira sets up Sheryl as his partner and proxy in charge of a section of the slums. Two of said gangs get big and powerful enough to start charging people in the Lower Districts (the [[UrbanSegregation working class section]]), which prompts a GovernmentConspiracy to get rid of those two NGOSuperpower gangs.

* [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]] became Robin because of this: a local mobster named Tony Zucco sabotaged his parents' act when Haly's Circus refused to pay him money.

--> '''Mercia:''' Oh, I do apologise. I forgot; families get a twenty percent discount. Eighty dollars.

* ''Film/ThePublicPays'' is a 1930s MGM "Crime Does Not Pay" short. In this installment of the series the "[[TotallyNotACriminalFront Creamery Betterment Association]]" moves into town and starts demanding all the local dairies start paying them a penny for every bottle of milk they sell. If a dairy owner balks, the Creamy Betterment folks wreck his business, with threats of [[ShameIfSomethingHappened violence to his family]] if the owner still refuses to play ball.
* ''Film/RoadHouse1989'': Brad Wesley runs a protection racket on all local businesses in the guise of managing the local "business owners association". All the local cops are in his pocket and he likes to make a public display of wrecking the business of anyone who refuses to pay.
* In ''Film/SherlockHolmes1932'', New York gangster Homer Jones introduces an American-style protection racket--including bombings and drive-by shootings--to London. This provides enough chaos and keeps the police distracted so Moriarty can implement his master plan.
* In ''Film/{{Skyscraper}}'', a NebulousEvilOrganization came to billionaire Zhao and threatened to make sure he would never be able to finish the construction of his super-scraper "the Pearl" unless he paid up. Zhao pretended to oblige but the electronic transfer of his "payment" included a Trojan horse virus that datamined the organization's financial records and gave Zhao a complete breakdown of their structure. The organization sent their personal [[TheDragon Dragon]] Botha to get [[MacGuffin the original copy of the program]] as a result, and he set the Pearl on fire for two reasons: to force Zhao to get the copy and to demonstrate that the organization's threats weren't a bluff.
* ''Film/{{Venom|2018}}'': Shopkeeper Mrs. Chen is robbed by a man implied to be part of some sort of racket, given how regularly and brazenly he robs her. The first time, Eddie Brock [[BystanderEffect shrinks away]], but when Brock gains the Venom symbiote he confronts the man and [[OffWithHisHead bites his head off]].

* In [[Literature/BooksOfSamuel 1 Samuel 25]], David and his men protected Nabal's flocks, and David sent to ask for supplies in return. When Nabal responded by insulting David and turning his men away empty-handed, David furiously swore that he would leave not one male of Nabal's household alive by morning. Fortunately, Nabal's wife, Abigail, met David in secret on the way, gave him supplies, apologized for her husband's behavior, and convinced him to turn back.
* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' the Ankh-Morpork ThievesGuild switched from random theft to charging people theft insurance policies where they only burglarize them on a pre-determined annual date, after Lord Vetinari proposed the scheme and informed the Guild leadership that he knew where they lived.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': One of the many money making operations John Marcone runs. Notable for actually providing effective protection, up to and [[ComicBook/DownTown including]] [[TheDon Marcone]] himself strapping on an automatic weapon and leading a raid on whoever hurt the person paying him.

** In ''Leviathan Wakes'', Ceres cop Joe Miller interviews a shopkeeper who used to pay protection money "insurance" to one of the local criminal syndicates. He never went to the cops before because this was just how things worked. When the extortionists suddenly disappeared he figured that the cops had finally managed to put the gang out of commission, and so when a new criminal claiming to be with the Outer Planets Alliance tries to pull the same scam he actually reports him to the cops. Since the cops ''hadn't'' managed to stamp out the gangs, this is one of the clues to Miller that something big is in the works and he initially thinks the OPA muscled them out to take over their territory. Then when the ''real'' OPA executes the new extortionist he realizes that the OPA is planning to take over the ''cops'', not the gangs.

* In William Jeffrey's "The Facsimile Shop" Henry and Alex come into the newly-established shop. Henry drops one of the replica art objects and makes a speech touting the advantages of belonging to the Sentinel Protective Association. The owner, James Raleigh, pays the "membership fee" and first month's dues with the counterfeit money he'd printed as a test run earlier that morning before making hasty plans to re-establish his shop in another state.
* In ''Literature/TheGodfather'', the alleged "Black Hand" Don Fanucci extorted payments from shopkeepers and illegal gambling in the post-World War I immigrant neighborhood of New York. Until he attempted to get a cut of the cash that Vito Corleone, Salvatore Tessio and Peter Clemenza make by stealing and fencing women's fashions, of all things. Corleone launches himself toward his destiny by [[DeadlyEuphemism dealing with Fanucci,]] then [[KlingonPromotion taking his place]]. The neighborhood, incidentally, is just fine with this, since Vito is not only far smarter and braver than Fanucci, he also shows himself to be a [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters true protector of his fellow Italians]].

* ''Film/TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree'': Mr. Grey was fired from the Mafia [[EvenEvilHasStandards for being too violent for them.]] The novel then explains that Mr. Grey's [[PsychoForHire excessive taste for violence]] got in the way of running protection rackets effectively; the victims felt no obligation to cooperate since he tended to beat them whether they paid or not.

* "Literature/WorkEthic": While at first Kristine operate on a basic payment plan (she gives them food, they fix and clean things), they eventually start purposefully break things just so Kristine can pay them to fix it. This is considered a natural progression of how HouseFey operate according to Monster.
* ''Literature/{{Yendi}}''. Vlad Taltos is a leader in the Jhereg (fantasy equivalent of TheMafia and the {{Yakuza}}) in charge of the criminal activities of an area of the city of Adrilankha. One of his operations is the protection racket that extracts money from merchants in his area. It provides most of his income, and when a rival crimelord starts attacking the businesses under his protection, he must take action to stay in charge.

* ''Series/Adam12'' had an episode with a racket targeting Jewish-owned businesses. The store owner that’s focused on doesn’t scare easy because he was a Holocaust survivor but it’s hard even for him. Eventually his wife gets hurt and he decides to help the police out a stop to it.

* In the Canadian series ''Series/BadBlood2017'' Declan Gardiner rose through the ranks of the Montreal Mafia because of his "work smarter, not harder" approach to traditional mob rackets. The old-school mobsters had problems collecting protection from immigrant store owners because the immigrants escaped war zones and tyrannical regimes and were not easily intimidated. Declan solved the problem by offering the store owners actual protection that they could not get from the city's bigoted and corrupt police force. Anyone who paid would no longer be harrassed with red tape by the city's corrupt bureaucracy and other criminal gangs were told to stay away. When a bunch of thugs almost killed an immigrant kid, Daclan personally tracked down the culprits, pistol whipped them and made sure that the kid would never again be bullied or even insulted. This brought Declan to the attention of TheDon Vito Rizzuto who was running a big scale version of the same scheme on the city's construction industry and other criminal gangs. If you wanted to build a new apartment building or a mall, you paid Vito a "consulting fee" and he would make sure that you had no problems with inspectors or the unions. If you wanted to deal illegal drugs, you gave Vito a cut and he would make sure that the police stayed away and the other gangs did not infringe on your territory. The central conflict of the first season is started when Vito's son Nico decides to renege on the arrangement and turn it back into a straight up extortion racket.

* ''Series/{{Bonanza}}'': The episode, "Death at Dawn," has Virginia City in the grips of a murderous gang who are plaguing it with a protection racket. When they murder a shopkeeper for refusing, the Cartwrights are determined to stop them even as they threaten Ben.

** "Broken Rules": A gang is shaking down businesses in a neighborhood in Little Havana. The shopkeeper who hires Michael to deal with them says that "at first they said it was for 'protection'. Now they don't even bother to lie". [[spoiler:The gang turns out to be run by a businesswoman who is trying to drive out the residents so she can cheaply buy up the real estate]].
** "Friendly Fire": Team Westen tracks a fugitive who is hosted by a gang that is running a protection racket against another gang. The smaller gang robs baby formula and the like from warehouses to deliver to impoverished residents at a discount, whereas the bigger gang is pushing them to steal prescription drugs for black market sale.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' sees the team go up against TheTriads who're running a protection racket on stores in chinatown.

* ''Series/PoliceSquad'' parodied this in the episode "Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood)". When mobsters beat up a ballet teacher for missing a protection payment, it falls to the men of Police Squad to break up the racket. Detectives Drebin and Nordberg go undercover, posing as locksmiths to attract the mobsters to their business. The mobsters soon arrive, and Drebin refuses to pay, so the mobsters try to intimidate him by perforating the shopfront with machine guns... and then [[BrokenWindowWarning throwing a single rock through the window]]. Naturally, Drebin fixates on the rock [[FailedASpotCheck and doesn't even notice the numerous bullet holes]]. Meanwhile, Nordberg [[BecomingTheMask keeps focusing on ways to improve revenue at the shop]], apparently forgetting why he went undercover in the first place.
* ''Series/TheSopranos'': Played with in the final season. One of the family's minor protected businesses folds and is replaced with a BrandX Starbucks. Patsy Parisi and one of his guys go in to try this routine on the new manager. The manager recognizes what they are doing, but in an almost sympathetic tone he points out that the company is a billion dollar multinational with complete insurance so they won't care -- or even notice -- if the place is vandalized. What's more, every single bean is in the computer so he can't even cave under personal threats, since if he started skimming for the mob he'd be fired immediately and a new manager brought in, starting the process all over again. The two mobsters leave, complaining about the state of modern business and how tough things have gotten for 'the little guy'. The episode ends with Tony Soprano himself selling one of his buildings in Newark to Jamba Juice who push out the current tenant to install a franchise, and when Patsy learns about that he wonders what is even happening to the city.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': Played for laughs and satire in [[Recap/StarTrekS2E17APieceOfTheAction "A Piece of the Action"]], as the entire planet is Mafia run with gang territories being more or less their own nations, protection rackets have effectively evolved into the equivalent of taxation. At one point several local citizens complain to a lieutenant, demanding to know when TheDon is going to send someone to fix the broken streetlamps, arguing that their always on time with their payments with the lieutenant half-heartedly trying to reassure them that if they put their complaints in writing someone will look into it.
* ''Series/SteptoeAndSon'': In a tribute/parody of Film/TheSevenSamurai one episode features Albert and Harold facing a local gang boss, trying to set up an "insurance agency" in their area, with him having his two goons smash to pieces a massive vase they just acquired to underline his offer. For added points, he goes as far as having it registered as an official insurance agency, to make it harder to pin anything on him for taking the people's money.
* ''Series/YancyDerringer'': In "Mayhem at the Market, merchants are in such fear for their lives that Yancy gets no cooperation in his attempt to break a new protection racket.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' setting priests of the [[LordOfTheOcean ocean goddess Umberlee]] often exploit their goddess' reputation for causing storms and drowning people on a whim to run protection rackets over harbors and shipping companies, charging ship captains a fee in exchange for travelling with their ship or mentioning it in their prayers so that it will be spared from Umberlee's destructive wrath.

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* ''Literature/TheHeavenCycle'': King of hell Azazel offers random cities to renegade demon Naberius to destroy and to turn their inhabitants into his twisted art projects, so Naberius does not prey on Azazel and his fellow demons.
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** In the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode, "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderZukoAlone Zuko Alone]]", a group of Earth Kingdom soldiers does this to the small Earth Nation village they are supposed to be protecting, threatening violent consequences if they aren't paid. The group is much less organized than most examples, but it works because almost anyone who could fight back against them is off fighting in the war.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'': The EstablishingCharacterMoment of the Triple-Threat Triad is a few members of the Triad walking up to a shopkeeper and asking for protection money: either the man will pay or they will use their Bending abilities to wreck the establishment.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'': The first episode shows an alien gangsters from Undertown implementing one on various shopkeepers, which Ben attempts to investigate. Either the gangsters get their money, or they wreck the ''entire'' establishment.
* A one-off villain in ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' was a mobster who forced business owners to pay him for "Oops Insurance". If they didn't pay, he'd break something in their store and say, [[SarcasmMode "Oops"]].

* [[StarterVillain Tetsu Ushio]] from the ''Anime/YuGiOh'' [[Manga/YuGiOh manga]] and [[Anime/YuGiOh1998 Toei anime]] was running a protection service from bullies for a hefty fee. He was shown forcing Yugi to pay him for protection even with Yugi refusing. Ushio soon became the first victim of Yami.