Case Worth Over RMB 40 Million, 21 Arrested: Xinning Police in Hunan Crack Major Illegal Vaping Oper

Recently, the Xinning County Public Security Bureau and the Xinning County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau successfully cracked an illegal production and salee-cigarettesIn the case, 4 manufacturing dens were destroyed and 21 people were arrested, involving more than 40 million yuan. It is reported that this is the first case of illegal production of e-cigarettes in Hunan Province that has been cracked in all aspects, integrating research, production, supply and marketing.

Electronic factory hides black workshop

In early May 2023, the Xinning County Public Security Bureau received a transfer from the Xinning County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau that someone was suspected of illegally producing and selling e-cigarettes in an electronics factory in Qingjiangqiao Township, Xinning County. In this regard, the Xinning County Public Security Bureau attached great importance to it, quickly organized a capable police force, and established a special task force to tackle the problem.

With the strong support of the higher-level public security organs, the police of the special case team actively expanded the line and worked hard to track down the source of the goods and checked the flow direction of the goods. They found that this was an illegal gang integrating product research and development, organization of production, and order receipt and sales, and accurately grasped the specific location of the illegal production factory and the composition of the people involved in the case.

The time is ripe to close the network centrally

After a lot of early evidence collection work, the task force judged that the time was ripe to close the network. Then, it joined forces with the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau of Xinning County to form multiple arrest teams and went to Guangdong Province, Shanghai City, Anhui Province and other places to carry out centralized network closing operations.

Successfully arrested 21 suspects including Li Mouchang, destroyed 12 e-cigarette production, storage and sales dens, and seized more than 100,000 e-cigarette rods on the spot.the cartridgeMore than 250,000 tablets and more than 300 sets of e-cigarette-related production equipment have effectively cracked down on illegal and criminal activities involving tobacco, effectively maintained order in the tobacco market, and purified the tobacco market environment.

It has been found that the criminal gang headed by Li Mouchang is well-organized, has a complete structure, and has a clear division of labor. In order to make huge profits, the gang took risks. Without obtaining an e-cigarette production and operation license, since October 2022, it has used many electronics factories such as Qingjiangqiao Township, Xinning County, Dongguan city, Guangdong Province, as e-cigarette counterfeiting sites, and used the Dongguan e-cigarette parts distribution center, Guangdong Province as the source of e-cigarette raw materials. It illegally produced and sold more than 10,000 e-cigarettes such as YFK-BOX that it developed by itself.

Later, due to poor market response and poor sales of the internally-developed products/in-house products, the gang pretended to be a well-known person.e-cigarette brandsWith trademark and outer packaging, we have produced and sold more than 100,000 imitation e-cigarettes and 650,000 e-cigarette cartridges, with a cumulative value of more than 40 million yuan.

According to the identification of the Hunan Province Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, the e-cigarettes and cigarettes produced by the gang are counterfeit products.

The criminal suspect Li Mouchang and other 21 people have been taken by the Xinning County Public Security Bureau in accordance with the law. At present, the case has been investigated and transferred to the Xinning County People's Procuratorate for review and prosecution in accordance with the law.

In the next step, the Xinning County Public Security Bureau will continue to strengthen linkage and cooperation with the tobacco department to crack down on tobacco-related crimes, maintain market economic order, and make every effort to create a good business environment in Xinning County.