Introduction This article examines extortion as a form of criminal governance embedded in contexts of high economic informality, focusing on the case of San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima. The study conceptualizes extortion not merely as a criminal act, but as a socioeconomic mechanism that regulates territory, economic activity, and everyday life in the absence of effective state protection. Methods Drawing on a phenomenological qualitative research design, the study involved 20 in-depth interviews with economic agents with constrained agency, community leaders, and judicial actors to explore the dynamics of extortion and its impact on social and economic regulation. Results The findings show that extortion operates as a system of informal taxation sustained through the strategic production and normalization of affective regimes of fear, which function as a technology of social control. This regime is increasingly mediated by digital platforms, enabling the viralization of threats and a digitalization of coercion. Consequently, violence becomes routinized, social trust erodes, and silence is institutionalized as a survival strategy. Economic agents deploy adaptive responses ranging from pragmatic negotiation to fragile forms of collective organization. Discussion The article expands the literature on criminal governance by demonstrating how economic informality, selective state presence, and digitally mediated coercion converge to produce a hybrid system of regulation. This study contributes to broader debates on informality, violence, and governance in urban contexts of the Global South.
Escobar et al. (Tue,) studied this question.