This interactive map lays bare the terrifying extent of gang activity across London after a police officer was left with a £10,000 bounty on his head for shooting dead known gang member Chris Kaba.
Hundreds of knife and gun-wielding gangs control ‘territory’ throughout the capital, including in neighbourhoods where houses are worth more than £1million.
The gangs, which often run extensive drug-dealing operations, sometimes groom children at school to join their life of crime, with promises of fast cars, fashionable clothes and ‘respect’.
It comes as London battles a knife-crime epidemic. Last year, 14,500 knife crimes were recorded in London — almost 40 a day — up from nearly 11,500 in the previous year.
The Centre for Social Justice estimates that gangs are responsible for almost half of all knife crime.
Kaba was revealed to be a ‘core member’ of 67, one of South London’s most feared criminal collectives who have terorrised Brixton for years because of a bloody turf war.
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Kaba was shot dead by sergeant Martyn Blake in September 2022 after a dramatic police chase which saw him use his Audi Q8 as a ‘battering ram’ to try to escape a roadblock.
Mr Blake, who was cleared of murder, is having to live in hiding, fearing for his life and his family after a £10,000 reward was offered to anyone prepared to offer information on his whereabouts in order to kill him in revenge.
Kaba’s notorious Brixton Hill-based 67 clan, pronounced six-seven, were described by Mr Blake’s lawyer as being the ‘most dangerous gang in South London’.
A Met Police report in 2023 revealed 67’s turf warfare had ‘encompassed numerous firearms discharges, stabbings and murders’.
67 has fought wars with rivals from estates located just streets away, including ’17’ in Wandsworth and Claptown gang, known as CT, based in Clapham.
Members of 67 are viewed as ‘godfathers’ of the London drill rap scene, notorious in its links to violence, especially knife crime.
The gang were awarded the best newcomer prize at the MOBOs in 2016 after picking up millions of views on YouTube. Kaba rapped under the aliases Madix, Itch and Mad Itch.
Chris Kaba in a drill rap video where he appears to pretend to fire a gun
Chris Kaba’s rap name was ‘Mad Itch’ or ‘Itch’ and he released drill rap songs bragging about gunning down rivals and selling drugs. A still from one of his videos is pictured above, for the song Numerous Times, where he bragged about stabbing a rival
His criminal past was only revealed after an Old Bailey judge rejected a plea from his family to keep it secret in the wake of the acquittal of Met Police marksman Martyn Blake, who was cleared of his murder last week.
Just six days before Kaba was killed, he had shot a rival gang member in a nightclub packed with 1,500 revellers.
CCTV caught the moment a balaclava-clad Kaba spotted Brandon Malutshi, who was associated with ’17’, across a packed dancefloor before reaching for a gun which had been smuggled inside.
Seconds later there was screaming and pandemonium as Kaba opened fire.
As clubbers darted for cover, Kaba chased his target down the street, firing three more bullets and hitting the victim in the leg by a car.
He then hopped into a Range Rover and his accomplices fled in the Audi Q8 that Kaba would use just days later.
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Many London gangs derive their names from their local postcodes, or, in the case of Block 124 in Lewisham, the local bus which serves Catford and Eltham.
The close proximity of gangs to each other often leads to violence, with innocent bystanders sporadically caught up in the mayhem.
In May 2017, Mohanna Abdhou, 20, was standing with friends next to a playground in the South Kilburn Estate in north west London when two men rode by on bicycles.
Mohanna Abdhou, 20, pictured, was the innocent victim of a botched gangland assassination in May 2017
The estate is home to the SK gang who were involved in a tit-for-tat violent campaign with the Harrow Boys from the nearby Mozart estate.
Two members of the Harrow Boys opened fire at their SK gang rivals.
One round ricocheted off a wall and struck Ms Abdhou. She died within 30 minutes.
Many of the territories across London have been mapped by a drill rap fan, known on Reddit as UKDrillPlugMusic.
It attempts to piece together the capital’s extensive gang network.
Some enthusiasts, however, dispute some of the boundaries and claim that it doesn’t show the correct state of play in 2024.
One senior member of the Beckton Boys Gang, Isaac Donkoh, known by his street name ‘Young Dizz’ was one of the criminals released earlier this week despite being jailed in 2019 for 12-and-a-half years kidnapping a schoolboy and posting footage of his ordeal on Snapchat.
Isaac Donkoh (pictured in one of his music videos) is a gang member and drill music artist from Newham, east London. He was released early from prison this week having served 40 per cent of a 12-and-a-half year sentence for kidnapping
The Metropolitan Police, which acknowledges there are 432 ‘active organised crime groups’ in London, does not publish its own territory map.
At the end of 2023, the Met had listed 496 people on its hugely controversial Gang Violence Matrix.
The GVM gathered intel on suspected gang members and ranked them according to risk on a scale of Red, Amber or Green.
Scotland Yard was forced to scrap its GVM following accusations it unfairly targeted young black men.
Statistics released by Scotland Yard show that, of the 496 people listed on the last GVM, 364 (73.4 per cent) were black.
