Revealed: the deadly crack war behind the killings of three London teenagers

Reporting exclusively for 'The Independent on Sunday', the award-winning crime reporter Tony Thompson spoke to gang members on the south London estate where the murders of three young men have shocked the community. What he found was a fight for dominance of the lucrative and violent London crack trade that is running out of control

The south London shootings that have claimed the lives of three teenage boys in just two weeks are the result of brutal turf wars caused by the jailing of two key figures in the drugs underworld, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

The men, both of whom were arrested in the last six months, occupied senior positions in the distribution chain that provides crack to many of the capital's most notorious estates, and the battle to fill the void they have left behind is directly responsible for the latest wave of killings.

I received this chilling insight from one of the youths at the sharp end of London's gang culture, 19-year-old "Chris", who agreed to speak to me only on condition of anonymity and that he would not discuss his personal involvement in any of the crimes.

Chris arrives late at the fast-food restaurant in Deptford where we have arranged to meet and recognises me by the notebook on my table. He wears an enormous padded black coat over a pastel-coloured collarless shirt that seems to glow against his smooth black skin. The gold chain around his neck looks thick enough to secure a small yacht and dangles like a glittery noose.

In between mouthfuls of chicken and chips - the only food he ever eats - he begins to tell me about the realities of life for today's black youth, a world with its own codes of conduct, traditions and language that are almost completely alien to anyone over the age of 21.

Intelligent and articulate - attributes Chris believes have enabled him to survive for as long as he has - he begins by explaining how it is that two arrests made months ago are only now starting to have an effect on the streets.

"For the first few months, there were enough drugs in circulation to satisfy demand. Also one of the men, because he was on remand, was able to have visits every day, so he was able to keep his business going. That all changed a few weeks ago, when he went into prison proper. Now everyone is fighting to try to take over his business. What will eventually happen is that a couple of the rival gangs will get together, make an alliance and move into place. Once that happens, things should calm down again."

In the meantime, the shootings are set to continue - as is the fear that fuels much of the violence. A fourth man was shot and killed in east London yesterday, as the police search for the killers of three teenagers shot dead in the last 10 days intensified.

"No one will admit it to you, but the truth is that there are a lot of scared people out there," says Chris. "They are scared for their lives so they get a gun. When they have a gun they feel safe, which is stupid 'cos a gun ain't got no other purpose than to kill someone. With a knife, you can eat your food or carve a stick. A gun is just a killing machine and no one should feel safe with that.

"Guns are everywhere and guns are respect. On the street, reputation is everything. If you have a gun, you make sure everyone knows about it. People say: 'Don't fuck about with that one, because you'll end up dead.' It means people overreact. You get a situation where someone doesn't even have a reason to shoot, but he does it anyway because he wants the rep that comes with pulling the trigger and doesn't want to risk the other guy getting his shot in first."

In recent months, Chris has noticed more young people getting caught up in the gang culture. "The people with the guns are getting younger because the olders are getting smarter. They realise they don't have to go out and do their dirty work any more because there are so many youngers willing to do it for them. You get some kid to do the shooting, the older gets what he wants and the younger gets a five-grand chain or something.

"You imagine, if you're 14 and you're at school with a five-grand chain around your neck, you're the man. There ain't gonna be nobody with nothing better. That's why they do it. These kids grow up seeing this all around them and they want to be part of it as quickly as possible."

A major part of the problem is that few of those involved in the gangs take any time to think about the consequences of any of their actions. "There are two kinds of road people out there. The first are the ones who plan ahead and think about what they are doing. They will only kill someone if they think it is going to further their career and be good for their business. The other kind are the people who don't think about the consequences, the hotheads who shoot first and ask questions later. They're the ones who shoot you if you step on their trainers or just look at them funny. They want respect and they think the quickest way to get it is to go out and shoot someone with a bigger rep than they have."

And it's not just about shooting. The same attitude carries over into other aspects of the lifestyle. "They call it balling," says Chris. "If you're balling, you're spending everything you have to look as good as possible, to live as big as possible. You get a taxi five minutes down the road, you buy a new ring instead of keeping the money to feed your family for the next six months, you buy brand new £150 trainers every week that you don't even need. It's all about showing off as much as you can. I know some 14-year-olds who've been out shotting [selling drugs] and have bought themselves cars. You look at them and you think: 'where you going with that?'

"I've even known of best friends killing each other because they want to take over what they have. They don't think things through. They don't think, 'right, if I stay with this I can have a nice income for the next few years'. They think, 'if I kill him, I can have a nice lot of cash for myself for a few weeks, get another Mercedes and a couple of chains'."

But for the most part, the economics of the drug world are very different from the stereotype. In the best-selling book Freakonomics, the authors study the drug business through the eyes of a Chicago crack gang called the Black Disciples, and find that the vast majority of the gang's foot soldiers earn less than the minimum wage. In a chapter titled "Why do so many drug dealers live with their mothers?", the authors show that for every crack dealer rolling in cash, there are hundreds barely making a living.

What keeps them on the street is the same thing that keeps millions buying lottery tickets - the hope that they might just strike it lucky. In reality, the odds are roughly the same. But so far as Chris is concerned, street dealing is a mug's game.

"Once you start shotting, you're just counting your days really," he says. It is not sudden death that shotters fear but arrest. They are at the very bottom end of the drug dealer career ladder and the nature of their work demands that they be out on the street and visible to the public. When the police crack down on an area, they are the ones who get picked up.

"I had a friend who was out shotting. He was there for two weeks and made about £400 before he got arrested. He came out last week after two years inside. If you manage to last a year, you might come away with say 10 grand, but it's not enough to get you off the estate, and if you're balling, you probably won't have anything to show for it anyway."

Chris believes few of his fellow gang members think of the consequences or reality of their actions. "They hear it in songs, they see it on TV and they see it in video games, but they don't know the reality. They don't know what really happens when you shoot someone. It ain't pretty to see someone's brains spilled out on the sidewalk."

I question Chris on his use of the word "sidewalk" rather than "pavement", and he happily admits that there is a strong American influence on Britain's youth gangs. Increasingly, they are developing their own language, a mix of Caribbean, gangsta rap and American slang words to describe their activities.

"The words you use are important. One of the ways you know which ends people are from is by the words they use and the way they use them. In south London, buff means big, but in west London it means nice. It's little things like that. The differences are small but important. If you stray into the wrong area, you end up dead."

Like many of his generation, Chris has seen death close up too many times. Three years ago, the body of his close friend Anton Hyman was found floating in the River Brent. He had been beaten, then stabbed multiple times, and finally shot execution style. The particularly brutal nature of his death was due to claims that he was acting as a police informant and skimming from his suppliers.

"I knew Anton for a long time and he was always a hothead. When he started selling drugs and making money, he thought he was invincible. Then when he got hold of his gun, he thought he was God. He had all these olders looking after him so he thought he was untouchable, but it was probably them same olders who killed him when he started messing with their business."

A few months before his death, Anton had been arrested for drug possession. Shortly before he was due to appear in court, police found three guns and two parcels of crack cocaine and heroin in a water mains box in the building where Anton lived. He was arrested again but released when none of his DNA was found to be on any of the items.

The finding of the guns frightened him. He took it as a warning that someone was after him and asked police to take him into custody because he was scared of being on the streets.

This, according to Chris, was his final mistake. "Asking the police for anything, that's seen as the same as being a snitch. And you just can't do that. That's something you really can never do. You never talk about your upline to anyone because those guys can make a phone call and in two minutes know everything you've said.

"When Anton came out, he tried to be the big man again but his days were numbered. It was only a matter of time." Three years on, nobody has been charged with his murder.

For Chris, the worst part of the life is the sense of hopelessness about the future. He talks about the depression that hits him every time he walks back on the estate where he lives and feels the reality of his life hit him.

"People always say, just walk away from it - but you can't do that. It's not that easy. The drugs, the guns, they're everywhere. Ninety per cent of the people I know are involved in this. I've had friends go to prison, I've had friends be killed, but that's just the way things are. I can't walk away from my entire life. It's the only thing there is."

The street gangs of London

Name: Hoxton Biker Boys

Who they are: Mixed nationalities

Where they are: Hoxton, Hackney

Name: Stratford Man Dem, also affiliated with Alma (Maryland) Tugz

Who they are: Predominantly an African gang

Where they are: Stratford

Name: Bombers

Who they are: Mainly Turks and Kurds

Where they are: Hackney

Name: Brick Lane Massive

Who they are: Bengali

Where they are: Southall

Name: Beaumont Man Dem

Who they are: Mainly white

Where they are: Leyton area

Name: Paki Panthers

Who they are: Mainly Asian Pakistani

Where they are: Waltham Forest

Name: The Centric Crew

Who they are: Mostly Somali

Where they are: Originate from Centric/Oval Road area, just south of Kentish Town

Name: The Muslim Boys

Who they are: Predominately Black British

Where they are: Brixton, Peckham, Lambeth and Streatham

Name: Ghetto Boys

Who they are: Predominately black British

Where they are: Deptford, Peckham and New Cross

Name: Peckham Boys

Who they are: Predominately black British

Where they are: Peckham, Walworth and Camberwell

The language of the street

London's gun-led youth culture is rapidly developing a language of its own. Using words from Caribbean patois, US street speak, gangsta rap and traditional underworld slang, conversations can prove impenetrable to anyone over the age of 21. The phrases are beginning to reflect the multicultural nature of Britain's youth, incorporating elements of Urdu and Arabic. Often the terms and meanings vary widely between different parts of London and even between different estates. They contribute to the powerful sense of identity and belonging each gang seeks to generate and can prove useful when it comes to identifying those who do not belong.

Ends

The area where you live, as in "What ends you from?". Can also mean money.

Slipping

Not paying attention to details, dropping your guard. People get shot if they are caught slipping.

Balling

Living a life of conspicuous consumption. Spending large amounts of cash in order to impress those around you.

Shotting

Dealing drugs, especially at the lowest possible level.

Dowie

Under par. Used in south London to describe people, in the west to describe objects.

Buff

Means good-looking or tasty in some parts of London, big or muscular in others.

Rents

Parents

Road people

All those work who work on the street or hang about on the roadside.

Stacks

Mythical piles of cash that drug dealers keep at home. The cause of many break-ins.