“We live in a state of fear. Sometimes we call the police, but they don’t even come,” said Alberto Quintero, who owns a paint store in San Cristobal city near the Colombia border. He said he is threatened sporadically by gangs and forced to make payoffs, the last one 30,000 bolivares – more than four times the monthly minimum wage.
A Portuguese immigrant to Venezuela who opened his shop in an industrial zone of Caracas 25 years ago stores wads of cash in a black bag each week then waits for the phone to ring.
When the call comes, a youth’s voice checks he is ready to pay, and a motorbike swings by shortly after to pick up 5,000 bolivars for local gangsters.
The payment – worth nearly $800 at the government’s strongest official exchange rate, though only $6 on the black market – ensures the gang does not attack his construction materials’ store again as they did last year.
“I refused the first time they phoned and then early one Friday they shot at the outside of the business. Another day, they came by on a bike shooting at midday,” he said.
“Here, everyone pays. Anyone who says they don’t is lying.”
Extortion has increased in the last two years as crime gangs assert more control in the South American nation, according to official statistics and interviews with businessmen.
[…]
