Gansu Police Crack Major Cross-Province Illegal Vaping Device Production and Sales Case

Recently, with strong support from the county bureau’s integrated operations team and related technical departments, the Luyang and Sitan police stations of the Jingtai County Public Security Bureau in Baiyin, Gansu Province, joined forces with the Jingtai County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau to carry out a coordinated crackdown on the “5.25” illegal tobacco products case across Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. The operation successfully arrested three suspects and dismantled three distribution agent locations and two production and processing sites.

Authorities seized 1,186 finished “three-no” e-cigarettes, 1,515 assembled filter tips, 2,500 cartridges, 9 barrels of e-liquid, 21,215 cartridge packaging boxes, 3,100 cartridge accessories, 39,850 small e-cigarette components, 1 automatic film sealing machine, 1 heat gun, 1 air compressor, 1 packaging machine, 1 fully automatic transparent wrapping machine, and 2 automatic tin-soldering machines. Officers also seized RMB 5,300 in cash and confiscated 4 mobile phones used in the crime. The value of the goods seized at the scene exceeded RMB 300,000, completing a full-chain crackdown from production and processing to sales.

On July 10, 2023, the Jingtai County Public Security Bureau received a lead from the Jingtai County Tobacco Bureau stating that residents in the Luyang and Sitan jurisdictions had recently reported that fruit-flavored e-cigarettes purchased through WeChat were suspected to be “three-no” products. After receiving the lead, Luyang Police Station and Sitan Police Station conducted extensive data analysis and precise investigation, discovering that the group had set up locations in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Guangdong to illegally produce, store, and sell e-cigarettes.

After securing sufficient evidence, investigating officers, together with staff from the Jingtai County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, immediately launched arrests. Following several days of coordinated raids, they dismantled 2 production sites and 3 distribution agent locations, seized more than RMB 300,000 worth of e-cigarette products as well as production equipment and raw materials, and arrested 3 suspects.

At present, the three suspects have been placed under criminal compulsory measures in accordance with the law, and the case remains under further investigation. Next, the Jingtai County Public Security Bureau will focus on investigating and verifying any sales to minors, tracing the downstream flow of already-sold illegal products in the e-cigarette market, and extending the investigation to suppliers of e-cigarette production materials in order to further expand the results of the case.