Mounting extortion plagues shopkeepers in violent Venezuela

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http://news.yahoo.com/mounting-extortion-plagues-shopkeepers-violent-venezuela-132645990.html

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A survey by private monitoring group Venezuelan Violence Observatory this year found that 34 percent of those interviewed said extortion was "very present" where they lived, compared with 25 percent in 2013, the last time the poll was conducted.

"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.

Extortion in Venezuela was for years concentrated mostly in that volatile western border region. But it is increasingly common in the capital too, adding to economic pressures forcing stores out of business, says the Caracas Chamber of Commerce.

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Venezuela suffers one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, which critics of President Nicolas Maduro attribute to ineptitude and rampant corruption among police, state prosecutors and judges.