Costing RMB 10 and Sold for Over RMB 100: A Suspicious Parcel Leads to a Counterfeit E-Cigarette Cas

Recently, the reporter learned from the Food and Drug Environmental Crime Investigation Brigade of the Jingyang District Branch of the Public Security Bureau of Deyang City, Sichuan Province that the brigade and the Jingyang District Tobacco Monopoly Bureau cracked the first case of manufacturing, selling and selling counterfeit fruit flavors in Deyang Citye-cigarettesIn the case, a full-chain criminal gang of manufacturing and selling counterfeit goods consisting of raw materials and equipment supply, production and manufacturing, transportation of finished products, and terminal sales was eliminated. The gang spread to Sichuan, Guangdong, Shandong, Hebei, Anhui, Zhejiang and other places, involving more than 6 million yuan.

A suspicious package

Lead out a network that illegally sells counterfeit fruit-flavored e-cigarettes

On March 24 this year, police from the Food, Drug and Environmental Crime Investigation Brigade of the Jingyang District Branch of the Deyang City Public Security Bureau were sorting out the information and found a package in a delivery outlet in a community on Longquanshan Road in the city was very suspicious. "This package has no sender and recipient information, only one contact number. This is abnormal and does not comply with relevant regulations." Subsequently, the Food, Drug and Environmental Investigation Brigade of the Jingyang District Branch arranged for the police to continue to investigate relevant information on the package, and at the same time arranged for the police to rush to the express delivery outlet. Police investigations and interviews found that the only phone number of the person who picked up the package was related to a woman surnamed Tong who worked at an e-cigarette franchise store in the city.

▲ Intercepted counterfeit e-cigarettes #p#paginated title #e#

Later, the police asked Tong to pick up the parcel in the name of a courier. Tong, who was in Shenzhen, asked his colleague Chen to come and pick up the parcel on his behalf. After Chen saw the police, his expression immediately became nervous. Seeing this, the police conducted an unpacking inspection of the suspicious package under his witness and found more than 500 boxes of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes inside the package.

Later, the police brought Chen back for questioning. According to Chen, his bosses Zhang and Guo opened trading companies in Deyang and Mianyang. Zhang arranged for Yuan and Zheng, the heads of Deyang, to open five e-cigarette specialty stores in Deyang City, and recruited her and more than 10 employees including Tong and Tang to sell e-cigarettes through open recruitment.

" In order to seek high profits, they still sell them under the guise of 'national standard' e-cigarettes even though they know that the country does not allow the sale of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes." A police officer handling the case introduced. After grasping the preliminary situation, the police immediately summoned Zhang and Tong to the case. Faced with the evidence obtained by the police, they confessed to the above behavior, and Zhang explained the purchase channels for the e-cigarettes he sold. Later, when the police investigated Zhang's family, they found that he had been arrested by public security organs in other places not long ago.

Police investigation found that Tong's delivery logistics information and capital flow were actually different from the purchase channels and contact personnel explained by his boss Zhang. They suspected that Tong and Chen might have concealed something. "We found that the family Tong contacted was Hou, a man from Shandong." The police immediately raided Tong. Seeing that the matter was exposed, Tong told her to collude with her colleague Chen to rely on the e-cigarette franchise store opened by her boss Zhang in the city to sell fruit-flavored e-cigarettes for Zhang while secretly selling fruit-flavored e-cigarettes from her own channels to make profits.

The police immediately launched an investigation around Hou and found that he was a native of Yantai, Shandong Province, and was only 19 years old. Since Hou was in a province and it was difficult to determine his whereabouts for a while, the police first listed him as an online fugitive to pursue him, and simultaneously carried out investigation work. In early June this year, Hou was arrested by a foreign public security agency and brought back by Jingyang police.# p#pagination title #e#

While on bail pending trial, the suspect also purchased more than 1 million yuan worth of production line equipment

After arriving at the case, Hou confessed to the crime of selling fruit-flavored e-cigarettes to Tong and others, and confessed to the police that two suspects who had been detained by the public security organs outside the province were his relatives. At the same time, Hou claimed to be a student and needed to return immediately to take important exams. Taking into account Hou's special circumstances, the brigade decided to take mandatory measures to obtain bail pending trial, and then let him return to his place of residence, and then return to continue the investigation after the examination.

" Later, we contacted Hou, but he refused for various reasons. After in-depth investigation, we found that he did not take the exam at all. Instead, while he was on bail pending trial, he purchased production line equipment worth more than 1 million yuan in Shenzhen and more than 200 kilograms of fruit flavor.the cartridgePrepare raw materials and transport them to Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province for the production and sales of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes. As of June 19, it has produced and sold fruit-flavored e-cigarettes worth millions of yuan." The police found that Hou had lied to the police, and while he was on bail pending trial, he also collaborated with others to prepare to expand the scale.

▲ Counterfeit e-cigarettes

After grasping the situation, Jingyang police set up a special task force to arrest Hou. "We showed Hou the conclusive evidence he had. He finally admitted the fact of producing and selling fruit-flavored e-cigarettes while on bail. However, he did not truthfully explain his underground factory, associates, employees, and next house."# p#pagination title #e#

Afterwards, the task force rushed to Shijiazhuang City to carry out a survey in the areas they had mastered in the early stage. "On the afternoon of June 23, we found an abandoned kindergarten that matched the location of the underground factory we knew. The investigators found that although the kindergarten was abandoned, its entrance was still equipped with a complete monitoring and access control system. They judged that there might be something fishy inside." Introduction to the police handling the case.

At about 16 pm that day, after deploying a strict arrest plan, the task force quickly broke into the abandoned kindergarten, arrested the people among them on the spot, and seized a production line for manufacturing fruit-flavored e-cigarettes and 11 production equipment,smoke oilMore than 150 kilograms, more than 100,000 empty packaging boxes, more than 27000 boxes of finished fruit-flavored smoke bombs, a number of various production materials, and the amount involved was more than 6 million yuan. "A fruit-flavored cigarette bomb costs about 10 yuan, and the market price is as high as more than 100 yuan. The suspect took risks in order to chase huge profits." Introduction to the police handling the case.

At present, Hou, Tong, Chen, Zhang and others have been subject to criminal coercive measures in accordance with the law, and the case is still being further processed.

Source: Red Star News, Reporters: Zeng Kejia, Wang Mingping