I Told A Room Full Of Cops That I Broke The Law

I admitted to a crowd of law enforcement officers that I used illicit vapes smuggled by Chinese Communist-connected cartels.

You might not realize it, but up to 85% of vapes circulating in the United States are illicit. On Wednesday, a panel of experts detailed how the Chinese Communist Party and Mexican cartel groups manufacture and distribute illicit vapes flooding into the United States at a Daily Caller Live co-sponsored by Regulate Smarter.

“Around the year 2020 … the good old vape manufacturers in China and our best friends, the CCP, they basically decided to spread their proverbial cheeks and dump a substantial amount of toxic product on our country. Sound familiar? Ala fentanyl,” President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation Jon Adler began. “So, in effect, what they decided to do, recognizing the value of selling this product, circumventing the FDA — no authorization, no testing— coming up with all sorts of packaging to create false images, employing what I call their Hansel and Gretel marketing plan to try and attract, or make this appealing rather, to children.”

Adler referenced popular brands like GeekBar, which employ fantastical flavors and colors in their illicit vapor products. GeekBar is labeled illicit because the FDA has not approved it for sale. Strawberry banana and watermelon ice are just two examples of entire product lines popular with minors and young adults.

“So they realized that they could use their good friends in the cartel and other means to sneak this product into the United States, using various networking opportunities — whether it’s the vape shops, bodegas and gas stations,” Adler continued. He said the CCP and its business partners “laugh all the way to the banks there that the CCP use” after smuggling vapes into the country.

Regulate Smarter Chairman and Senator Richard Burr noted that circumventing U.S. electronic cigarette regulation has resulted in a multi-billion dollar illicit vapor market, with compliant U.S. producers suffering associated losses. Cartels put these profits toward their other criminal enterprises and often launder the money via fraudulent financial mechanisms, according to research from the National Sheriffs’ Association.

“The cartels have consistently used products that are low risk, high reward when it comes to jail sentencing and whatnot,” Retired Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Rana Saoud told the audience. “But when it comes to illicit vaping, nicotine and potentially other counterfeit products and trade, they are able to make a lot of money … so we go into old school customs fraud-type operations.” Cartels engage in bribery and mislabeling to smuggle illicit vapor products across the border, according to Saoud.

“I would say they’re very sophisticated international networks,” Former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Sandalio Gonzalez added. “[Y]ou see how the cartels use the illicit cigarettes to fund a lot of their operations and make their money … the Chinese influence, the funneling of all those products over to Mexico and into the United States and the funding that they give the cartels and the companies in China, it’s all connected in very similar parallels to the drug trafficking.”

Illicit vapes follow the same smuggling path from China to Mexico that fentanyl and other dangerous precursor chemicals do, Gonzales told attendees. Sauod added that cross-contamination is a legitimate risk.

“Any kid will order an illicit vape online and it could come in, it could completely be laced with fentanyl and you don’t know. And so that’s why we have to regulate a little bit better, because you can go online and buy something and the kid gets it and it’s got a precursor to fentanyl in it and they have an allergy, right?” Saoud detailed. “And it could be an airborne allergy, and now this kid’s using an EpiPen, right? And they’re having to go to the hospital, and that could have catastrophic implications for a parent, right? And I don’t know if anybody has had to deal with that, but going to a kid, like, a parent’s house and kids overdose, it’s a really just horrible situation.”

Illicit vapes have sparked health crises before. From August 2019 to February 2020, electronic cigarettes and vape associated lung injuries (EVALI) afflicted nearly 3,000 Americans, according to archived Centers for Disease Control data. Thinning agents used in flavored disposables trafficked from Mexico injured and even killed some consumers.

Adler scolded politicians like Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has proposed taxing alternative nicotine products under her state’s 75% wholesale tax on tobacco products. “Go around and do the random inspections. Put together the little task force. Make the effort. Take the initiative,” Adler said.