Prosecutors contend that they were captains in the Gambino and Genovese crime families and that the trade associations were used by the Mafia to extract payoffs from garbage hauling companies and customers.

Federal authorities depict him as organized crime's pivotal figure in extracting payoffs from New York City's private garbage hauling industry.

Prosecutors contended that union officials previously punished insurgents by not referring them for jobs and extracted payoffs from contractors for labor peace.

This is intended to replace the old system under which unlicensed crews, setting their own rules, were free to extract payoffs and inflated fees for prompt unloading of perishable cargo.

Our intelligence analysts were already predicting the occasion would likely mean a range of provocative actions from Pyongyang to mark the birth of their country's father and to extract payoffs from the outside world.

When he made his trips from Albany to Chinatown, prosecutors said, he slipped into a shadowy underworld where crime lords employ violent young men to extract payoffs from merchants and protect gambling enterprises.

Investigators said the practice of extracting payoffs from the contractors, who did buildingwide work like waterproofing and painting, was commonplace, as routine as tipping the doorman at Christmas.

The FARC, the strongest, oldest and richest guerrilla group in Latin America, also makes a habit of kidnapping foreigners as well as Colombians to extract exorbitant payoffs.

But if Japanese executives were not afraid of talking to shareholders and letting an annual meeting last more than 30 minutes, the sokaiya would have a harder time extracting payoffs.

Investigators say the mob is able to extract payoffs because of its threats to interfere with the transportation in and out of the market of quickly perishable seafood.