Overview
- Measures include a special anti-extortion cabinet, stronger surveillance in businesses, linkage of private cameras to the C5, and signal jammers in prisons.
- The legal framework now equates penalties for attempted and completed extortion and allows prosecution ex officio, enabling earlier intervention.
- Authorities report 234 arrests for extortion and 23 for attempts in 2025, up from 181 and nine, respectively, during the comparable period in 2024.
- Security officials say more than 2,608 extortion-related calls were handled this year, with threats often defused and victims able to receive crisis, legal and psychological support via specialized hotlines without visiting prosecutors’ offices.
- Preventive steps include 1,897 physical help buttons installed in 2025, for a total of 2,170 physical and virtual devices versus 361 in 2024, alongside training and network-building for neighborhood, commercial and business groups and the forthcoming City Pact.