Shylock's crime was USURY, which is the practice of lending money at an exorbitant or illegally high rate of interest. In William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who demands a pound of flesh from Antonio, a Christian merchant, as payment for a loan. This demand is illegal and immoral, and serves as a representation of the anti-Semitism that was rampant in Elizabethan England.