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Extortion offenses and penalties in the Penal Code

Dossier
Operational and cargo security22-seguridad-operativa.md
Domain
Cargo theft, extortion and private securityseguridad-operativa
Room
Security/seguridad
Audited
Audited

Article 261 of the Criminal Code (Decree 17-73, as amended by Decree 17-2009) punishes extortion with 6 to 12 years in prison, non-commutable (penalty cross-checked in ONSEC's consolidated text). The Act Against Organized Crime (Decree 21-2006) adds intimidatory exactions (art. 10) with 6 to 8 years (tier-c text, to be cross-checked against Mingob's PDF); extortionate obstruction of traffic (art. 11) was amended by Decree 11-2025 (the Anti-Gang Law, Nov 2025) and its penalty in force remains to be verified in the amended text.

The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.

Figures

Pena por extorsión (art. 261 CP)Código Penal consolidado ONSEC
6–12 años, inconmutablevigente
Exacciones intimidatorias (art. 10 LCDO)leydeguatemala.com
6–8 añosvigente (tier c)

Caveat

the penalty under the amended art. 11 of the Act Against Organized Crime remains to be verified

Sources

Organizations named in the answer

  • ONSECPublishes the consolidated text of the Criminal Code with the 2025 reforms (art. 261, extortion: 6–12 years, non-commutable).Public agency

Directory of organizations

Related records

This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.