The Gooch Close Gang
| Founded | 1980s or earlier |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Moss Side, Manchester |
| Years active | 1980s to present |
| Territory | Manchester |
| Membership (est.) | 250 |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, armed robbery, kidnapping, prostitution, extortion, racketeering, contract killing, money laundering |
| Allies | British crime firms |
| Rivals | The Pepperhill Mob |
The Gooch Close Gang also known as the G.C.O.G's (Gooch Close Gang) is an organised crime group based in Moss Side, Manchester, England. Most members of the gang grew up on the West Side of Moss Side around Gooch Close (which is where the gang gets their name from).
The Gooch has had disputes with both Cheetham Hill and The Pepperhill Mob (A rival gang from the east side of Moss Side).
The Gooch Gang had its origins in the west side of Moss Side. From Young men hanging around a Shebeen on Gooch Close selling drugs. Gooch Close was a small cul-de-sac of semi-detached houses with an alley at one end.
The gangs - whilst supplying to the street dealers - also try to ensure that the dealers are protected from other gangs by protecting their territory. Most of their problems occur when rival street dealers start to move into territory already controlled by a gang or when a gang 'taxes' a rival dealer - a move seen as damaging street credibility and respect.
The Gooch was different to The Pepperhill Mob in ethnicity. The Gooch was mostly people of African descent, some still in contact with family in Nigeria, Gambia etc., while the Pepperhill were mostly from the West Indies.
Cheetham Hill Leader Anthony "White Tony" Johnson was involved in a killing on Saturday, January 9, 1988, against a rival gang member (Anthony Gardner, who was 26). Gardner was a member of a local Moss Side based gang. As Gardner drew up outside a sheban on Saturday, January 9, 1988, a man [Johnson] stepped out of the shadows, pulled a sawn-off shotgun from under his coat, pressed it against Gardners chest, and fired. It took Gardner about a minute to die on the pavement. Hearing the shots and believing the police had arrived, customers poured out of the sheban, throwing their drugs into the street. Later police found more than £1,000-worth of heroin and cocaine abandoned like so much litter.[2]
The drug trade in the city quickly became an extremely lucrative one and in the early 1980s a 'gang' war started between two groups vying for control of the market in Manchester city centre - the Cheetham Hill Gang and The Gooch Close Gang.
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