Incident in Shaoxing: vaping devices hidden in milk tea cups and sold to children, 10 arrested

So angry!

Someone hid counterfeit vaping devices

in "milk tea cups" and "cola cans"

and sold them to children in Zhuji!

Recently,

Zhuji police dismantled 4 locations

of counterfeit vaping devices

and arrested 10 suspects

seizing over ten thousand counterfeit vaping devices.

Directly selling vaping devices to students

and even finding agents from among them.

The incident dates back to March of this year.

The Zhuji Public Security Bureau's Food and Drug Environmental Protection Team

received information

that several unbranded vaping products

were very popular among students in our city.

After receiving the tip-off,

the team collaborated with the city’s tobacco monopoly bureau to investigate.

They quickly arrested suspects Sun and He, among others,

and seized various “milk tea cups,” “Luckin cups,” and cute tiger cups

containing multiple “fruit-flavored” vaping devices.

According to the Zhejiang Tobacco Quality Supervision and Inspection Station,

these are all counterfeit vaping products.

After interrogation, police learned that

the suspects knew that “fruit-flavored” vaping devices

were favored by some middle school students,

and they advertised directly to them through social media platforms like Moments and Xiaohongshu,

selling products directly to them.

They even sought suitable agents for distribution.

Dismantling 4 locations

and seizing over ten thousand counterfeit vaping devices.

After gathering clues,

the team organized police forces

to capture 4 suspects in Yiwu,

dismantling 3 storage and sales locations for counterfeit vaping devices,

and confiscating over 12,400 counterfeit vaping products,

4 computer hosts, several ledgers,

and a large number of express delivery receipts and other related items.

According to suspect Ge,

they started engaging in unlicensed sales of vaping products

from last year,

purchasing vaping products from Guangdong

and had developed over a dozen subordinates

distributed across the country.

Subsequently,

the police rushed to Guangdong Haifeng and Shenzhen

to capture the main suppliers

and arrested first-level vaping agent Yu,

vaping manufacturers Zhang and Ling, among others,

dismantling one production site for vaping devices

and seizing a large number of finished vaping products, vaping rods,

vaping oil, batteries, and accessories totaling tens of thousands of items.

Deliberately designed to look like toys

selling for hundreds of yuan.

Reporters found that

this batch of counterfeit vaping devices had exquisite packaging

and cartoonish appearances.

However, they contained

various chemical components:

vegetable glycerin, food-grade propylene glycol,

naturally extracted food-grade flavoring, organic nicotine salts, and nicotine, etc.

“It seems to be labeled 'food-grade', 'natural', 'organic',

but they are actually 'unbranded' products.

They cost around 20 yuan but sell for hundreds of yuan.

Each can be puffed 5,000 to 6,000 times,”

said police officer Ni Senfeng from the Datang Police Station.

These vaping devices are highly deceptive,

making it difficult for teenagers to resist the temptation

and easily leading them to take their “first puff.”

Sales of “fruit-flavored” vaping devices are strictly prohibited.

Team leader Zhao Zhen of the Food and Drug Environmental Protection Team said that

the manufacturers designed the vaping devices to look like toys

to skirt regulations

and launched different types of “fruit flavors.”

This not only violates relevant tobacco monopoly laws and regulations

but also violates the Minor Protection Law,

seriously harming the physical and mental health of minors.

It is understood that

the "Vaping Device Management Measures" implemented since May 1 last year

prohibit any individual, legal person, or other organization

from selling vaping products, atomized substances, and vaping nicotine

through information networks outside the specified vaping product trading management platform.

Sales of flavored vaping devices other than tobacco flavor

and vaping devices that can have atomized substances added are also prohibited.

In other words,

“fruit-flavored” vaping devices are strictly prohibited from being sold.

As of now,

the Zhuji Public Security Bureau has taken criminal coercive measures against

10 suspects.

In addition,

the city’s tobacco monopoly bureau has also joined multiple departments

to conduct joint actions focusing on areas around schools.

Currently, these counterfeit vaping devices are almost unavailable in the market.