Pure genius from San Francisco, where extortion is done with a style that we seem to lack in the UK.

Consider the case of one Frank Salvador Solorza, who has just been convicted of conspiracy, attempted extortion, and impersonating a federal officer. He was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in jail.

Prosecutors said Solorza was trying to extort $50,000 from a Bay Area family. He made calls and sent letters purporting to be from a U.S. immigration agent, accusing the family members of lying on their applications for permanent residence and threatening to have them deported. The messages told them that if they paid $50,000, their papers “would be good forever.” The family contacted actual federal agents, who then recorded subsequent calls providing instructions in how to hand over the money.

“The family was told in one call,” the report says, “that a man in a clown suit and riding a small bicycle would be coming to pick up the money.”

And that, of course, is the brilliant part of the plan. If you spot a man in a clown suit riding a small bicycle you aren’t likely to think “Aha! There goes an extortionist.”

Agents watching the family home in February 2009 watched Solorza ride up to it on a tiny bike, wearing not just a clown suit but “a clown suit, a clown glitter wig, a Pirates of the Caribbean hat (complete with dreadlocks), and sunglasses.”

He was arrested when he tried to collect a briefcase supposedly filled with money…carrying the mobile phone from which the calls had been made, and “a receipt from the House of Humor costume store in Redwood City.”

And why was he disguised in a clown suit, makeup, glasses and hat? He needed to hide his identity because he’s actually related to the people he was trying to extort. Not that it made much difference – they suspected him from the start because about two weeks earlier he had been asking them when their green cards were going to expire.

You couldn’t make it up.