Crackdown on Illegal E-cigarette Industry: 21 Arrested in Multi-Provincial Operation

According to a report from China National Radio on June 25th, in order to purify the e-cigarette market and protect minors from the harm of tobacco, the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment of the Public Security Bureau of Siping City, Jilin Province recently dismantled an illegal e-cigarette industry chain involving nine provinces and eleven cities. Twenty-one criminal suspects were arrested, with a total amount involved reaching over 50 million yuan.

The brigade found that there are many fruit-flavored e-cigarettes on the market, often being used by minors. It is understood that as of October 1, 2022, according to the regulations of the "Regulations on the Management of E-cigarettes" and the "Tobacco Monopoly Law", businesses engaged in the operation of e-cigarettes must apply for and obtain a tobacco retail license from the tobacco monopoly regulatory authority. They can only conduct transactions on the national unified e-cigarette trading management platform established by the tobacco department, and flavored e-cigarettes (except for tobacco flavors) are prohibited from being sold.

Following this lead, the Siping Public Security Bureau and the Siping Tobacco Monopoly Bureau quickly established a special task force and successfully identified the sales network, criminal methods, business model, and hierarchy of the criminal gang. The gang used WeChat to purchase over 20 kinds of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes prohibited by tobacco authorities from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, and other places online, and used local delivery, express delivery, and logistics to sell fruit-flavored e-cigarettes in Siping, Changchun, Gongzhuling, and Liaoyuan in Jilin Province.

After obtaining sufficient evidence, the task force immediately carried out arrests, capturing a total of 21 criminal suspects in nine provinces and eleven cities including Jilin, Guangzhou, Beijing, Hunan, Hebei, and Shandong. They successfully dismantled an illegal factory producing and processing e-cigarettes, confiscating 31,000 fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, with a total value of over 50 million yuan involved in the case.

Currently, this case is under further investigation.