More than a decade ago, it was a regular haunt as they tried to quell the 800 metre strip in Punchbowl that had become home to Sydney's worst violence, drug dealing and criminality.

As the new millennium began, Telopea Street was a brazen stop and shop for cocaine, heroin and ice.

Now, it is a quiet suburban strip like any other in Sydney. You can't tell it used to be run by a network of sophisticated gangs with loyal foot soldiers.

Many of those men have moved on, many are in jail. A good number were part of an unprecedented migration to traditionally anglo-saxon outlaw motorcycle clubs. Some are already dead.

Central to the evil of those times was Mustapha Dib, whose family arrived in 1977 from Miniyeh, in Lebanon's north.

On Friday, Mustapha Dib, known by friends, family and police as 'Fairy,' received a 30-year minimum jail sentence for the Lakemba murder of pregnant Anita Vrzina, 20, and wounding her partner, Ahmed Banat, with intent to murder in November 2000.

It was the second person he killed before he was 18.

Aged just 15, he stabbed and killed schoolboy Edward Lee in a brawl on Telopea Street. Lee's violent and senseless death forced Sydney to face the reality that a new generation of gangs were on the streets that had no qualms about killing innocents or anyone who got in their way.

Police had become targets too. In the month following the Lee murder, amid an intense police operation, the Lakemba police station was targeted in a hail of bullets.

Now an acting Deputy Commissioner, David Hudson was the Campsie crime manager when Telopea Street was a virtual war zone.

He told Fairfax Media this week, criminals in south-west Sydney got a foothold while police were rebuilding after the Wood Royal Commission that made sweeping reforms to rid the force of corruption.

''There was so much stuff going on internally we sort of took the eye off the ball and this gave them a strong foothold,'' he said.

But Mr Hudson said police gradually clawed their way back with in-your-face policing.

''We pushed back and eventually took back the streets,'' he said.

In two years, they made more than 60 arrests and seized $3 million worth of assets in an attempt to strangle the Telopea Street menace. It culminated in Dib being charged with Mr Lee's murder.

For the Dib family, it was a double-blow.

Mustapha's brother Mohammad Dib, 34, who has spent at least eight years in jail for car rebirthing and his role in trying to cover up his brother's role in the Lee murder, told Fairfax Media they are a ''normal family despite a few murders and shit''.

''It's quiet here, it's like any other street in Sydney,'' he said. ''Before, yeah, there was drug dealing and stuff but we were young guys misled by older guys,'' he said.

Many of Sydney's worst crooks of that era grew up on or near Telopea Street, working together or on opposing gangs to control the underworld, while the infamous Danny Karam gang - known as DK's boys - fought it out for control of Kings Cross.

Michael Kanaan, sentenced for three life murders, and the warring families of the Razzaks and Darwiches epitomised the lawless, ruthless bloodlust that Telopea Street thrived on.

These were the people Dib and his family called ''friends''. Mohammad Dib described Kanaan as ''a top bloke''.

Nonetheless there was a hint of regret at the years wasted on the criminality for which they are renowned.

''If I worked legitimate like I do now since day one, I'd have more money in the bank than a life of crime. I've got nothing and jail is the worst place ever. It's not worth it,'' he said.