In only two years, a small, colorful vaping device called Elf Bar has become the most popular disposable e-cigarette in the world, generating billions in sales and quickly emerging as the overwhelming favorite of underage U.S. teens who vape.
Last week, U.S. authorities publicly announced the first seizure of some of the company’s products, part of an operation confiscating 1.4 million illegal, flavored e-cigarettes from China. Officials pegged the value of the items at $18 million, including brands other than Elf Bar.
But the makers of Elf Bar and other Chinese e-cigarettes have imported products worth hundreds of millions of dollars while repeatedly dodging customs and avoiding taxes and import fees, according to public records and court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Records show the makers of disposable vapes routinely mislabel their shipments as “battery chargers,” “flashlights” and other items, hampering efforts to block products that are driving teen vaping.
Anyone’s who’s ever gotten a package delivered from China knows they just kinda write stuff in the description on the customs declaration, usually something vaguely related but I sometimes wonder if the guy loading the boxes knows what’s inside them.
I once got a Chinese workers ID tag and a box of his opened cigarettes in a box with my order. I’m pretty sure he didn’t realize those were in there!
Totally would’ve smoked the cigs, hear the Asian import ones taste better, course I’m a menthol guy.
Oh shit. Did you smoke one? Foreign cigarettes hit different.
As a company it is pretty annoying. I have an outgoing payment for what we ordered - getting a commercial invoice for random gifts worth 5 EUR doesn’t help me much.
Few weeks ago had a lenghty discussion with one vendor which ended with him asking if I shut up if he gives me everything I need to make my own invoices with his signature and company stamp.