[4] In 2015, a local police officer estimated they once had hundreds of members, but declined in the early 2010s due to leaders of the gang going to jail.
[4][8][14][15] In a 2012 Lambeth government report, Angell Town Estate was characterized as "severely deprived in income, employment, heath and crime".
[16] By the early 2000s, PDC, which was the dominant gang in the area at the time, began to fragment due to many of its leaders being imprisoned.
This convinced members of Y28s and Tiny OC that they needed to unite together as one, leading to GAS Gang being created.
[19] In 2009, a set of CCTV videos were released showing large groups of GAS Gang and PYG members riding into each other's territories.
[4][7] In 2010 Sylvester Akapalara was shot dead by a group of youths in a tower block called Heron House, on Pelican Estate in Peckham, South London.
It was initially reported that the youths who committed the murder were members of GAS Gang, but this was later found to be incorrect.
In response, around 25 GAS Gang members quickly surrounded the chicken shop, prompting police to intervene before anything could happen.
[26] In November 2011, Azezur 'Ronnie' Khan was shot dead by an unidentified gunman while attending a funeral for a friend, a member of GAS Gang, that had died in a car crash.
Three alleged members of GAS Gang, Nathaniel Grant, Kazeem Kolawole and Anthony McCalla (also known as Mad Antz[26]), were jailed for life as a result.
[31] The trio were actually attempting to shoot a rival gang member who had run into a store where Thusha, an innocent bystander, was located.
[4][11][32] Two months after the shooting of Thusa, Temidayo Ogunneye was robbed by members of GAS Gang in Myatts Field.
It was reported GAS had expanded their drug dealing operations across the UK with contacts in Edinburgh, Essex, Bedfordshire, Reading and Bracknell.
Detective Chief Inspector Tim Champion stated:[37][13]We are targeting this gang because it is one of the most dangerous in London whose members are involved in knife and gun crime.
This led to close affiliations between GAS and Murder Zone (MZ), a gang based in Somerleyton Estate.
[1][40] One prominent member was Sneakbo, who would later leave gang life behind after being arrested in 2011 when police suspected he may have been connected to a murder.