WARSAW. Aug 7: Restauran-teurs and store-owners in Warsaw's old town Joined forces Saturday, shutting up shop en masse in protest at increasingly violent demands for protection money from racketeers linked to organised crime, reports AFP
Parasols folded and sb”''ers closed as all stores and ^tau-rants in the city's main tourist area — apart from one cafe and a jewellery sho" - joined the three-day shut-own.
Barring a continual stream of police cars and a few dozen French and Japanese tourists desperately looking for somewhere Jo get a drink, the market place, normally a hive of activity, was almost empty at • lunchtime on Saturday.
The district's traders association took the decision to shut down for three days from Saturday after repeated raids by a group of some 30 racketeers who broke furniture and harassed customers and demanded a "tax" from shopowners of up to 3,000 dollars a month.
Several meetings with city authorities and police led nowhere, with police claiming they could do nothing unless at least one trader agreed to file a complaint and testify against the racketeers. But the shop-owners refused in fear of reprisals.
"Arrested and charged with breaking a table, the racketeer will be free again after three days. And even before that, the others will go after my children.” one trader explained.
The shutdown, however, has had the effect oi increasing police sue- "...ta a 27-year-old man .-as detained overnight after he and a group of others tried to extort money
from a pub-owner.
Several Polish papers, including the dallies Gazeta Wyborcza, Super Express and Zycie Warszawy. called on Warsaw residents to support the traders action and to boycott any establishments which stayed open.
The owner of a restaurant, speaking on condition of anonymity, said most of the racketeers appeared to be former convicts, most were about 30 years old. were tattooed and spoke prison Jargon. Some spoke a few words of Serbo-Croat, which he claimed could indicate they had served as mercenaries In former Yugoslavia.
They were usually accom-
panied by two "elegant men" who could be lawyers. Their boss was a well-known gangster known as "Pershing" who always drove a Mercedes, while his "troops" preferred black BMWs with tinted windows. the restaufanteur added.
According to' inspector Marek Ochocki. head of the police division charged with fighting organised crime, the racketeers cannot be considered a mafia.
He said the racketeering gangs, although they might have as many as 100 members, had no-political influence and did not control whole economic sectors as was the case In some other courtries.