The transition of power from the communist state's Milicja Obywatelska to the newly formed Police of Poland allowed for criminal rings to flourish all throughout the country.

Its founders were mainly petty criminals, such as shoplifters or currency dealers, who took advantage of the weakened police force to form bigger groups and master more elaborate crimes.

The mafia first rose to prominence in local media in May 1990 when two of its members were found dead alongside the expressway connecting Warsaw to Katowice, commonly referred to as "gierkówka" (named after Edward Gierek, who had commissioned it), in the stretch going through the village Siestrzeń.

In 2015 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the District Court of Warsaw The group would also force different criminal entities in Poland to pay "license fees", which were transferred by the heads of organizations to the leaders of the Pruszków Mafia.

[5] The second half of the decade saw several high ranking members of the gang be killed or apprehended, as murders and executions became more widespread, oftentimes occurring in broad daylight and using non-conventional means, such as explosives.

In February 1996, Wojciech "Kiełbasa" Kiełbiński was executed in the streets of Pruszków in a heavily publicized event, while in 1999, Andrzej Kolikowski, the founder of the aforementioned group from Ożarów Mazowiecki, was killed while on vacation in Zakopane.