Police detain four in Tbilisi for group extortion, violence, illegal possession of drugs

Four individuals have been arrested for group extortion of large amounts of money, group violence, illegal possession of drugs and failure to report crime, Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said on Wednesday.

The state body said its investigation had established the offenders, who had criminal history, had used deception to take their acquaintance to a residential house before handing them over 300 grams of illegal drugs with a directive of selling them within two weeks and delivering the profits to the group. They threatened the victim with harm to their family members in case of failure to follow their orders.

After the individual failed to follow the requests, they were forcibly taken to a Tbilisi suburb, with the offenders exercising physical violence and issuing threats of torture and killing of their family members, the Ministry said.

The victim was released on the condition of depositing ₾20,000 ($7,591) into the group’s bank account within a few days, while a third individual, who was a witness to the acts, failed to notify law enforcement about the offences.

Law enforcement officers covertly recorded evidence confirming the acts after obtaining a court warrant, the body added, before arresting and charging two with extortion and group violence and one with failure to report the crimes. 

Police also seized a “large amount” of cannabis from a flat of an “individual related to one of the offenders”, bringing the number of arrested persons to four.

The group is facing up to seven years in prison.