WVS NEWS: Most Vape Seizures Stem From Duty Evasion
Few illicit product seizures are directly related to products thought to be attractive to minors, according to the newest edition of ECigIntelligence’s enforcement tracker.
The second, updated version of the tracker shows most seizures are due to excise duty violations or some element that could potentially prove to be harmful to the wider public health – for example, illegal additives, harmful contaminants, higher than permissible levels of nicotine or more e-liquid capacity than the law would allow.
The new tracker shows numerous countries where reported potential youth uptake of vaping or other nicotine products is being handled by retail inspections and leading to arrests, fines and some seizures of products in stock. However, these seizures tended to be relatively small in number compared with those conducted by customs, border and tax inspections.
Retailer inspections in the US, Germany and the Netherlands
Countries of note for inspections included the US (which conducted most of the retailer inspections of under-age sales actions tracked by the ECigIntelligence enforcement tracker), Germany and the Netherlands. The latter two are also interesting because of their actions in terms of wider seizures.
Germany provides an example of how seizures in terms of tax or public health violations far outweigh those made in the name of youth protection. Meanwhile, the Netherlands provides one of the few examples of a large-scale seizure that could theoretically be more due to youth attraction than excise or public health concerns. The country reports that, since the start of 2025, its Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority has seized over 185,000 vaping products that violated the Dutch non-tobacco-flavour ban. Interestingly in comparison, only 550 nicotine pouches were found during the same period.
In Germany, inspectors in the Marxloh district of Duisburg reported seizing several hundred e-cigarette devices after retail checks. However, this paled in comparison to seizures made as part of tax compliance inspections. For example, 3.3 tonnes of illegal e-cigarettes were taken after the inspection of a truck in North Rhine-Westphalia that led to a subsequent seizure of “illegal e-cigarettes with a volume of more than 190 l” during further investigations into the company responsible.
Similarly, Bavarian customs authorities reported having seized around 250,000 smuggled e-cigarettes, while more widely, Customs reported seizing 1.9m illicit e-cigarettes throughout 2024. This included products lacking tax stamps as well as those with too high nicotine levels, too large e-liquid tanks and dangerous additives – including synthetic cannabinoids.
US action against illegal Chinese imports
Returning to the third country of note in the ECigIntelligence enforcement tracker in terms of retail inspections on under-age sales, wider enforcement appears to be ramping up in the US on the issue of illicit Chinese imports. This has been a regular talking point of members of the new administration of US president Donald Trump and has seen continued action throughout the year.
In the latest edition of the ECigIntelligence tracker, a new report urges further action in the US against domestic distributors of illicit Chinese imports through aggressive state and local lawsuits. This would hit a critical link between Chinese manufacturers and US retailers on duty evasion grounds and represent something of a change in enforcement direction. Some states have already started to take such a tactic. But the authors of the report would like to see more done by other states as well.
It is interesting to note the emphasis on duty evasion on these products, when illicit Chinese imports are those primarily accused of being made and marketed with youth uptake in mind. This appears to be more to do with the report making suggestions such actions are common and linked to prior actions taken against illicit tobacco, which would have inevitably focused on excise duty issues more than youth uptake. However, it could be that the report’s authors also thought action on the issue of tax revenue would be more of a motivator for enforcers than prevention of youth vaping uptake.
Driving the black market further into the shadows
More widely though, there are concerns that increased enforcement action is pushing the illicit e-cigarette trade further underground. For example, Thai authorities worry smokers’ demand will continue to drive the illicit e-cigarette trade, with more products appearing online. This will force the authorities to develop new technology to effectively combat the issue.
Similarly in Moldova, customs reported that 2024 saw a 200% increase in vaping imports, including over 14,000 l of e-liquids and more than 35 tonnes of devices. However, shops have seen a decrease in e-cigarettes sales. Authorities interpret this as a sign that more products are being sold online or on the black market, making them more accessible to youth as well.
Overall, it appears enforcement against illicit vaping and other alternative nicotine products is becoming more difficult – though efforts are ramping up. For example, there appears to be more activity on snus and pouches. In addition to the previously mentioned Dutch reports that included pouches, Australian authorities seized more than 7,000 pouches from two locations in Sydney. Meanwhile, Russian authorities seized 600 packs of snus as part of a larger operation in Khakassia.
Overwhelming flood of products
But as new products enter the market, enforcement authorities seem to be somewhat limited in what they can do in a response. For example, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of Australia said it does not even have an estimate for the size of the vaping product black market in the country. Recent reports saying it had an estimate of 10m vaping devices on the black market came from a third-party report submitted to the TGA and were not estimates from the regulatory agency itself.
Meanwhile in Belgium, vaping associations are hitting back after minister of health Frank Vandenbrouck announced he would ban all e-cigarettes due to children increasingly buying black market vapes. The best approach when faced with the frustrations of policing the vaping market, according to the minister, is to simply prohibit everything rather than attempt to discern between legal and illicit products. The vaping associations instead would like to see stronger enforcement against the black market and a better distinction between legal and illegal products.
In Germany, it is Elf Bar and Lost Mary leading the charge against illicit counterfeit vaping products entering the market – with some degree of irony. The brands are fighting imposter products on intellectual property grounds, with Elf Bar having won one case already against a brand with a similar name on the German market. They are also urging lawmakers as well as police to take greater action, with reports that authorities are responding to work with the brands on organising investigations and seizing counterfeit products.
Enforcement action may be growing, but enforcement agencies are also getting increasingly concerned about maintaining efforts in the face of rising use of nicotine alternatives, growing numbers of nicotine alternative products as well as brands, and increasing regulations that must be followed – according to data in the latest edition of the ECigIntelligence enforcement tracker.
Enforcement data sources
In the tracker, data is gathered by ECigIntelligence’s analysts daily through the use of manual and artificial intelligence scanning of news sources, Google alerts and Tobacco Watcher alerts. These sources cover local news primarily – though also include official press releases or regulatory notifications.
The enforcement tracker will provide an excellent broad overview of trends in enforcement action; however, it is not an exhaustive collection of all relevant actions in all jurisdictions. The overall mix of reports tracked in the document reflect differing levels of information based on general culture, accessibility and language.
For example, it may be easier to collate reports on enforcement action taken in Thailand rather than China because multiple sources may report the Thai action. However, unless Chinese authorities officially publish a report, there will be little chance of it being picked up. Similarly, some regulators will publish information on every significant enforcement or some news sources will exhaustively cover small enforcement actions, whereas the culture of other sources may reflect different priorities – leading to similar actions remaining unreported.
Finally, the make-up of the enforcement tracker will also inevitably reflect language biases, with a preponderance of entries from English language sources. Although efforts are made to include information from non-English sources, inevitably the make-up of the tracker will reflect the level of activity of languages online – with English sources dominating. There are also differences in levels of non-English sources, with languages such as Thai arguably being overactive in posting when compared with the relative size of the Thai-speaking population.
ECigIntelligence believes the tracker will be invaluable for identifying changes in enforcement, such as how priorities in terms of product, location and type of offence are changing over time.
– Freddie Dawson ECigIntelligence senior contributing editor
Image: AI-generated
