17 Arrested, RMB 30 Million Involved: Ningbo Cracks Major Counterfeit Vaping Case
Recently, it was reported that the police in Cixi City, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, in conjunction with the Ningbo Tobacco Bureau, have cracked a major cross-provincial case involving the production and sale of counterfeit electronic cigarettes. The counterfeit electronic cigarettes were identified as substandard by the Zhejiang Tobacco Quality Supervision and Testing Station, which issued the first national electronic cigarette product identification report. So far, 17 criminal suspects have been arrested, 8 locations involved in the case have been dismantled, over 50,000 counterfeit electronic cigarettes have been seized, along with more than 30,000 pieces of packaging materials and 21 production devices, with the total amount involved exceeding 30 million RMB.
The police collected evidence in the workshop. Photo provided by the interviewed unit
In October last year, the "Mandatory National Standards for Electronic Cigarettes" officially came into effect, marking a new stage in the legalization and standardization of the electronic cigarette industry.
"A logistics vehicle heading to Cixi was found to be carrying a large quantity of production materials for counterfeit electronic cigarettes of a well-known brand." In November last year, the Ningbo Public Security Bureau's Food and Drug Environmental Crime Investigation Team received a tip-off from the public. Given the special nature of the case, the team, along with the Cixi Public Security Bureau's Public Order Management Team and the Ningbo Tobacco Bureau, immediately established a joint task force to investigate, initially identifying an illegal processing factory for counterfeit electronic cigarettes hidden in our city, and gathering basic information about the suspects and their activities.
In order to dismantle this production and sales chain of electronic cigarettes and uncover the criminal network, the task force began with Yang, the renter of the production site, and through surveillance and extensive data analysis, a large criminal chain involved in the illegal manufacture and sale of counterfeit electronic cigarettes emerged.
This chain includes multiple processing factories distributed across the country, involving a huge amount of money. The main suspects, including Kong, Kong and Yang, repeatedly purchased e-liquid, tubes, electronic components, and other raw materials from Yang and Fu, transporting them to a processing site in Dongguan. After processing and assembling the raw materials, the semi-finished electronic cigarettes were sent to a certain location for labeling and packaging to be completed. Subsequently, according to Kong's instructions, the goods were sent to domestic agents for sale.
After clarifying the case, the task force determined that the time to act had come and began to formulate a plan. On December 10, 2022, the task force mobilized over a hundred elite personnel to carry out a unified operation across the entire chain, capturing suspects at various processing factories. Gao Liansong, a police officer from the Cixi Public Security Bureau's Public Order Management Team, told reporters that although there were setbacks in the arrest operation of this major counterfeit electronic cigarette case, progress was rapid. Currently, criminal coercive measures have been taken against the 17 suspects involved, and the case is still under further investigation.
"In this case, the counterfeit electronic cigarettes we seized are not just simple 'knock-offs' of big brands." The police officer told reporters that most of the counterfeit electronic cigarettes had mismatched atomizer resistance values with the e-liquid, raising quality concerns, and there were instances of producing and selling substandard products. The resolution of this case has swiftly cut off an entire channel for the production and sale of counterfeit electronic cigarettes, effectively maintaining order in the local tobacco market.
