HK Underground Market Investigation: How to Get a Vape under Ban

Online buyers nowadays have never been more exposed to those items that they might have an interest in, thanks to the eerily smart algorithm. If you are a former or current vaper in Hong Kong, there is a great chance you will bump into accessories of alternative smoking devices, such as lanyard strips or leather protective cases, when browsing local popular second-hand trading platforms.

They are seemly to be some legacy left behind by a successful quitter in smoking, as it has been over two years since the city posed a total ban on vape and other alternative smoking products. Yet on the product detail page, another entrance will show visitors to another world, in which supposedly perished transactions are still thriving in the city.

Box of Worms

In the last two months of 2023, 2FIRSTS has tried to order batches of e-cigs in Hong Kong. Following a disguised item page of a Silicone protective case for vape devices on Carousell, a well-received platform in the city for buying and selling second-hand items, 2FIRSTS managed to reach the seller on the instant chat application WhatsApp based on information provided in the item description.

The response was instant. After the 2FIRSTS’ greeting message was delivered, the seller immediately sent back multiple pics as product catalogs. All of them followed a certain style of visual elements. Corny-designed, yet attention-grabbing.

2FIRSTS inquired about the expiration date to confirm if it was the inventory stockpiled before the ban was imposed. "We promise that you won't get old stock," the seller said, "we make orders directly from the manufacturer for the freshest batch."

When asked about the origin and the manufacturer, the seller dodged the question by saying that all products currently circulated in Hong Kong are produced on the mainland, in a bid to lure customers who have concerns over the quality control of the "Made-in-China" products, which is relatively common among locals. "If you are told another way, you are fooled."

"Is there any way to verify its authenticity?" 2FIRSTS asked.

The sellers then recommend LANAVAPE as the only option offered the authentication code among those generic ones. The brand was introduced as “a prestigious one, and has been popular in the South East Asia.”

After the purchase, the seller invited 2FIRSTS to join a telegram group. With over 1,300 members, sending messages is not allowed in the group. Posts that can be seen in the group were all from the group admin. Among those posts, there were random fluffy memes and celebrity gossip besides regular updates on new arrivals.

To avoid legal risks, some other sellers choose to register their portals outside of Hong Kong, such as one website on which 2FIRSTS also placed an order. It is said to be registered in Malaysia, claiming that all items are shipped outside of Hong Kong and thus any potential violations of the city's laws will be irrelevant to them. (It is to be mentioned that during the investigation, 2FIRSTS found that the parcels sent by this “Malaysian company” to the buyers were still shipped from the city, despite the seller's claims that "all items are shipped outside of Hong Kong". The outbound site implies the existence of warehouses in the city holding a stock.)

Prestigious brands RELX or ELFBAR can also be seen among the products on the shelf. 2FIRSTS ordered for each for further scrutiny.

Concealed Transactions

Privacy, for both buyers and sellers, is squarely valued yet unevenly protected during the transaction.

The fastest one was completed within half a day. The whole purchase process is almost as smooth as food delivery, with even the delivery fee waived as 2FIRSTS chose an in-person handover in one of the city's populous metro stations. After paying the amount to a personal account via FPS, a real-time online transfer and payment service platform popular in the city, all you need to do is book a time slot to meet your delivery person at the agreed-upon location. The carrier came for you to stay in the paid area and hand the package beyond the subway gate to the buyer standing outside, not even bothering to read the travel card.

"Should I reach you if there are any quality issues?" 2FIRSTS asked the carrier outside the gate.

The delivery person, who was in his early twenties, suggested 2FIRSTS to consult the "WhatsApp account you chatted with earlier" for customer service, as he only be paid for each delivery without being familiar enough with the products.

If you are looking for higher privacy for your purchase, a more flexible delivery option is offered. Your order can be sent to a smart mailbox across the city for pick-ups, with 24-hour self-service available.

Some sellers are taking one step more in playing their cards close to the chest. When trying to buy iQOS, once one of the most trendy alternative smoke products among local young users before the ban, 2FIRSTS was told by a seller that only cash-on-delivery is accepted to avoid any transactions records and "any entrapment set by the custom," the seller reminded.

The transaction is not the only thing that the sellers don't want to leave a trace of. When making orders on WhatsApp with the seller who claimed to be registered in Malaysia, the seller turned on the function of disappearing messages to make sure any new messages vanished automatically from the chat history seven days after they were sent.

However, the business owner seems to eye the privacy of the customers in different ways from that of themself.

According to the privacy terms stated on their page, the personal information collected by them may be used for credit checks, or acting on buyer’s behalf to process applications and updates for products and services from partners, including but not limited to insurance and financial products. Once buyers create an account to buy the products from the seller, they by default agree to those suspicious terms, leaving significant potential risks in terms of personal privacy.

All that Glitters is not Gold

After completing all the meticulous moves during the purchasing, the products that arrive at the buyers' hand are not always guaranteed to be what was expected. Vapes sneakily circulated in the underground market in the city and made their way to bypass basic quality control.

Among all the investigative purchases conducted by 2FIRSTS, only one batch of LANAVAPE was successfully verified through the code provided for authentication purposes. After scanning the code, the landing page it led to confirmed that the product purchased was positively produced by a manufacturer based in Shenzhen. According to the seller, the batch entered Hong Kong from Southeast Asian countries after being exported from the mainland "since the ban was posed (by the mainland) to disallow the exportation".

The information provided by the rest brands on sale is not typically traceable. In most cases, even if you can be led to a verification page after scanning the link, the website itself is an orphan page with a fancy UI design and scores of dead links. The lousy spray printing on an "ELFBAR" product aroused the suspicion of 2FIRSTS during the unboxing. Following scanning a security code print on the package of the carefully disguised verify page said "The security code you inquired about is correct", while none of the links on the website is clickable.

The address of the suspicious verification page (http://www.ebdeslgn.com/a/b/c/verify.html?id=438323617131935148) was arranged in a way remotely related to that of ELFBAR (https://www.elfbar.com/verify.html?c=438323617131935148). 2FIRSTS entered the 18-digit code again on ELFBAR’s official page, yet failed to pass the authenticity verification this time.

The Relx Phantom is among the products purchased by 2FIRSTS during the investigation. There is no way provided for receivers to tell whether it is genuine or counterfeit. However, it is clearly stated on the package that the item is "not for sale".

Furthermore, there is no warning message engraved on the body, which raises more doubts about its authenticity. The model was first launched in Dec 2020. However, all domestically sold e-cigarette products are required to include warning labels starting October 1 2022 as the new national standard came into effect in China.

2FIRSTS also ordered a product under the brand Fluum, one letter more than the well-known Flum. It is, according to the package information, produced by a company named DSK(Dongguan) Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. The manufacturer based in the Guangdong city has registered two-digit brands with names and logos strikingly similar to those popular in foreign markets. It is alarming how those brands can be possibly used.

Living spaces are created for less known and inferior brands or even counterfeits as little choice has been left for the market. Unregulated markets left unprotected consumers. Smokers are forced to turn to lower-end products with poor quality control for alternatives.

Those who Reluctant to Quit

The ordinance can illegalize transactions on paper, yet has little effect on diminishing the demand under the water.

In the just-concluded three-day Clockenflap, one of the largest music events of its kind in Hong Kong, the use of e-cigs was spotted more than in any other corner of the city.

There are designated smoking areas in the festival site, outside which all smoking or vaping is not allowed. Yet even in the crowded audience area during the intermission, a strong smell of smoke could still be detected. It was not uncommon to see groups of friends passing smoking devices back and forth, for both bonding and time-killing.

A vaper surnamed Kwok was among them. She shared her experience with 2FIRSTS. "Music events like this will make you lose yourself more or less," she said. "Normally I can only take one outside the building (I worked in), considering the indoor smoking ban and the fact that many colleagues dislike the smell of smoke. But at this occasion, there is not much more concern."

When asked about how she secured her nicotine supplies, she said the first device she used was an iQOS iluma One, purchased in 2019 in Japan. "It only cost me around 2500 yen (around HK$132) to buy in a duty-free store in Japan," She said. While it is another story if you want to get one in Hong Kong now. The seller 2FIRSTS contacted in 2023 in Hong Kong asked for HK$1190, an almost nine-fold price, for the same model.

The current device used by Kwok cost her HK$1300. She consumes about one stick per day, amounting to a monthly nicotine expense of around HK$250 for her. Still, Kwok said it was not a significant expense for her, and she managed to maintain a "stable stock" via online purchases. "My dealer owns a telegram group, in which we never chat. The group was just used for him to randomly post some new arrivals." She showed 2FIRST the group chat history, which gave a vibe very much like the telegram group joined by 2FIRST during the previous purchase, with around 400 members.

Kwok and other group members are ones who are reluctant to quit despite the ban. Lee Chi-gwong, the director of the Hong Kong Christian Service Services for Young Night Drifters at the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, said that over the year 2021, the group has interviewed around 100 young people who have used e-cigs on the streets. Only about five percent of them expressed an intention to quit.

However, some previous vapers go back to traditional cigarettes for nicotine consumption. A smoker surnamed Leung, told 2FIRSTS that he started to take traditional cigarettes again instead of vaping after the ban because he is "not that cyber-savvy to make order online" and does "not want to make a fuss".

The situation escalated after the city's government further raised tobacco tax by 30 percent in Feb 2023, boosting the price of each pack of mainstream cigarettes to HK$74. Duty-not-paid cigarettes, commonly known as "Cheap Whites", have quietly been welcomed as an affordable alternative for price-sensitive buyers like Leung.

Taxed cigarettes available for sale in Hong Kong typically have a tar content per cigarette not exceeding 13mg. According to investigations conducted by a local media outlet, due to the lack of quality control, tar levels of "Cheap Whites" range from 30mg to 50mg per cigarette, surpassing the nicotine and carbon monoxide levels found in legitimate ones and will “significantly increasing the risk of cancer for smokers”, the agency said.

Costly Law Enforcement

Following the investigation, 2FIRSTS contacted the Hong Kong Custom on the issue. The custom referred 2FIRSTS to the city's health department, claiming that the Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office of the Department of Health, a principal enforcement unit under the city's smoking ordinance, will be in response to the vape-related issue.

When trying to contact the office, the phone call made by 2FIRSTS was referred to 1823, a distribution center for calls to receive complaints about any areas of government service making it impossible for potential complainers to report the case to the staff of the office.

In the first year since the ban came into effect, the office received 386 referrals and 124 complaints concerning selling alternative smoking products. Yet the office laid only five summons to the offenders, with none convicted in court.

2FIRSTS consulted Tang Shunliang, a practicing solicitor with 15 years of experience in the tobacco industry, on the matter. "Investigation on online transactions can be tricky," the attorney said.

Tang pointed out that confirmation of whether a person has committed an act of sale in the city and the identification of the offender are intractable in terms of legal practice, making it hard for law enforcers to take follow-up actions, let alone leading to a final verdict.

There are about 45% of cases are taken to a halt because of the lack of information for further follow-up, or unable to proceed with prosecution due to insufficient evidence, the office admitted in the statement published in May 2023, one year later since the ban came into effect.

And the brands involved in the transactions are also likely to face penalties if they are acknowledgedly allow their product to enter markets like Hong Kong, in which the product is legally prohibited, Tang added. That's to say, the manufacturer who took orders directly from that Hong Kong seller will be much more likely to be in trouble - only if the seller told the truth.

The total ban on alternative smoke products was considered "long-awaited" by many when it was finally settled in 2021, six years later since it was first brought up. However, the retreat of regulated products from the city let the opportunistic speculators in, leaving customers with higher prices and unregistered products of poorer quality. Over a year and a half since the e-cig ban took effect in Hong Kong, the emerging gap between the contrasting realities and the initial intention of tobacco control is worth pondering: beyond a blanket ban, could there be another way to achieve a further win-win for public health, consumer rights, government revenue, and a greater good?

2FIRSTS will keep following the latest updates on Hong Kong's e-cig policies and market. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please contact alan@2firsts.com