As New York City prepares for a political shift at City Hall, a growing chorus of law-enforcement veterans and industry watchdogs is urging Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to take a hard line against the illicit Chinese vape pipeline saturating the city’s smoke shops and bodegas.
According to Fox News, the warnings come as federal agents and city investigators report unprecedented levels of illegal disposable vapes moving through New York’s retail network — a trade that has expanded far beyond flavored nicotine products and into the orbit of narcotics, weapons trafficking, and multimillion-dollar money-laundering schemes.
“New York City has always been the capital of the criminal tobacco market, and the illicit Chinese vape trade is no exception,” former NYC Sheriff Edgar Domenech, who previously served as an ATF official focused on tobacco contraband, told Fox News Digital. “They continue to be sold by smoke shops in every borough and on every corner.”
Domenech praised the outgoing administration for taking aggressive enforcement steps, and he argued the new mayor will have to match — or exceed — that intensity.
“The Adams administration made strong strides bringing enforcement action, and Mayor-elect Mamdani needs to continue that fight to protect New York’s children and defend small businesses,” he said.
He also urged city leaders to secure part of the $200 million recently set aside by the FDA for national enforcement efforts.
Federal regulators have long warned that China’s vape industry, estimated at $28 billion, continues to funnel vast volumes of flavored disposables into the U.S. despite federal bans.
Investigators say those brightly packaged vapes, often designed to resemble candy, represent only one slice of an increasingly complex criminal enterprise.
New York City has become one of the most active hubs for the underground market. Under Mayor Adams, officials seized more than 1,200 pounds of illicit vapes valued at over $80 million — so many that the city struggled to find space to store them before destruction.
The city also filed suit against nine national distributors, including one based in Buffalo, accusing them of flooding local neighborhoods with unauthorized Chinese-made vapes aimed at teenagers.
“We are facing an epidemic of e-cigarette and vape use among young people, and we will not stand by while manufacturers and wholesalers supply our city with illegal, harmful products that target our most vulnerable New Yorkers — children,” a spokesperson for Adams said last year.
Despite federal restrictions, government data shows two-thirds of China’s vape production ends up in the U.S., with more than 80 percent of vapes sold nationwide classified as illicit. Officials warn that this is the moment when enforcement must intensify — not stall.
But questions linger about how aggressively Mamdani will pursue the crackdown.
His campaign emphasized cutting fines and fees on small businesses by 50%, a pledge that helped secure support from the United Bodegas of America — an organization whose member shops have frequently been cited for violating federal and state vape restrictions.
With a sprawling illegal market, a fresh influx of federal funding, and a new mayor preparing to take office, New York City’s next steps may determine whether the surge in illegal vapes slows — or accelerates.
