Pay or die

Overview

On March 21, 1983, at 9:00 a.m., two terrorists kidnapped businessman Jesús Guibert from the garage of his company in Azkoitia (Gipuzkoa). He was held captive in a cave for nearly three weeks by his two abductors. Guibert was released after a payment of 200 million pesetas. ETA continued to extort him until the collection of these extortion payments ceased in 2011. ETA’s systematic extortion in the Basque Country and Navarre—the so-called "revolutionary tax"—was a criminal phenomenon unique in Europe.