Aggressors may use their military-administrative apparatus and monopoly position in seized or colonized territories to create a system of shadow levies and systematic extortion. Representatives of the occupation administration artificially erect bureaucratic, logistical, and legal barriers, forcing the Indigenous population to pay unregulated bribes to exercise basic rights — to conduct trade, to move freely, or to keep their property. This practice is used for the direct extraction of benefits through the illegal enrichment of the metropole's apparatus at the expense of the local population's resources. At the same time, it serves as an instrument of institutional consolidation of control, as it turns arbitrariness into the norm and demonstrates to the colonized society its absolute lack of rights before the aggressor's officials.
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy engaged in systemic lawless arbitrariness against the Indigenous population: the historian Sh. B. Akhmadov states that «the venality and bribe-taking of the voivodes, who permitted themselves great abuses — all this was far from a new phenomenon»[1].
The overseers appointed by the empire over the auls (the pristavs), within the amanat-and-tribute system of Pullo, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line (a chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), systematically robbed the inhabitants of the seized auls of Chechnya under the guise of collections. The imperial historian Yurov described the mechanism - the pristavs lived off exactions, since "not all pristavs received a salary": from the Chechens, "under the pretext of collecting tributes and fines, the best weapons were taken away, and other entirely harmless but valuable articles of everyday use; it happened that people innocent of anything were arrested at the prompting of simple and often ill-intentioned interpreters... and during expeditions forced collections were permitted"[2]. The empire knew and would not listen: the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write from archival documents that two Chechen elders brought to the Kabardian prince Bekovich-Cherkassky, who served the empire and was influential on the Terek river, "a petition drawn up on behalf of many Chechens, in which they complain of the oppressions and injustices of major-general Pullo" - the prince refused to accept the petition[3]; according to Yurov, the Chechens "had prepared a petition against him, but did not dare to set it in motion for fear that this general would remain their superior as before"[2]. The empire's survey "The Region in Political and Military Respects", sent by the empire's Minister of War Chernyshev to general Neidhardt, who soon headed the empire's troops in the Caucasus, on 2 April 1842, summed it up: "taking advantage of the abuses, the exactions and the indignation arising from the confiscation of weapons, Shamil little by little stirred all Chechnya to revolt" (Shamil - imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest)[4].
Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: fine moneys were spent on maintaining exiles and secret agents, and at times covered officials' embezzlement - in 1893 the head of the Nadterechny uchastok, lieutenant Tomashevsky, embezzled over 300 rubles collected from Chechen villages[3]. The nature of the power was admitted from within by colonel Belik, appointed in 1860 the first head of the Chechen okrug; he later wrote: in Chechnya "there reigns for the most part not law but arbitrary rule, often founded on the dishonesty of the chief, and thereby we only sow in the people distrust of ourselves, even hatred"[3].
The ban on leasing land directly to the highlanders, introduced at the end of the 19th century, produced middlemen: "The result of this decision was the appearance of a large number of intermediaries through whom the land still reached the highlanders, but at a higher price"[3]. Who profited from it is named by historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova: "Speculative leasing became widespread; it was practiced by officials of the government and administration and by officers, who rented large areas at 10-15 kopecks per desiatina and sublet them to the highland population at a price several times the original"[5]. The difference in price was pocketed by officials and officers of the very administration that had taken the land away.