Highlights: China News Service, Hubei, September 15—While investigating a theft case, police in Fancheng District, Xiangyang, followed leads and successfully dismantled an illegal e-cigarette distribution chain.
According to a report from Hubei News on September 15, the Xiangyang Fancheng police recently uncovered an illegal e-cigarette distribution chain while investigating a theft case.In July this year, Ms. Zhang, a resident of Xiangyang Fancheng, hurried to the police station to report that after using a new type of e-cigarette introduced by a friend at a gathering the previous night, she became increasingly disoriented and later discovered her phone had been stolen.After hearing Ms. Zhang's description, the experienced officers suspected that the e-cigarette must contain some special ingredient that impaired her consciousness. Based on the clues provided by Ms. Zhang, the police quickly identified the suspect and organized a team to apprehend four suspects in an apartment building.During the interrogation, suspect Xiong confessed that he had purchased e-cigarette pods containing etomidate online and used them to incapacitate victims in bars and nightclubs before committing theft.Just as the police were preparing to uncover the illegal distribution chain behind the e-cigarettes, the Hubei Provincial Public Security Department transferred verification clues regarding the illegal e-cigarettes seized by the Shennongjia Forestry District Tobacco Bureau to the Xiangyang Public Security Bureau.The police found that the illegal e-cigarettes circulating in the Shennongjia Forestry District were identical in brand and packaging to those used by Xiong, likely from the same supplier.By analyzing Xiong's purchase records, the police quickly identified the seller and posed as e-cigarette "buyers" to contact the seller, Li. After setting up surveillance, the police successfully apprehended Li at his home.Li confessed that all the e-cigarettes he sold came from a distributor named Deng, from whom he had repeatedly picked up goods at Deng's warehouse. Many other businesses also purchased e-cigarettes from Deng for resale. Deng was one of the main distributors of illegal e-cigarettes in Xiangyang and the entire northwestern Hubei region, with dozens of boxes of unsold e-cigarettes stored in his rented warehouse.Based on the clues provided by Li, the police conducted multiple investigations to determine Deng's residence and ultimately arrested him on August 23. On August 25, the warehouse where Deng stored e-cigarettes was also seized by the police, who found over 20,000 boxes of pods containing etomidate and fruit flavor additives, valued at over 1.6 million yuan.Deng confessed that he was originally an agent for a certain brand of e-cigarettes and had purchased 30,000 boxes of fruit-flavored pods from Shenzhen for sale last August. However, the state began prohibiting the sale of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes starting October 1, 2022. To avoid financial losses, Deng decided to add etomidate to the e-cigarettes to expand his market, procuring etomidate solution from a pharmaceutical factory before it was classified as a controlled substance, and added it to the e-cigarette pods for sale. By the time of the incident, Deng had illegally sold over 9,000 boxes of e-cigarettes.Currently, Deng and others have been criminally detained by the public security authorities.
