ICAC smashes e-cigarette syndicate and arrests 16 for alleged bribery
發佈日期: 2025-05-09 21:01
TVB News
The ICAC has arrested 16 people on suspicion of bribing staff members of a logistics company to help deliver e-cigarettes and vaping products to customers. The sale of e-cigarettes has been banned in Hong Kong since April 2022.
In the operation, ICAC officers seized 600 cartons containing more than 200,000 vaping products with an estimated market value of roughly 20 million dollars. The 16 suspects, aged between 24 and 70, included seven members of an illegal e-cigarette sales syndicate and nine employees of a logistics company.
The ICAC found the syndicate had been running an online shop selling e-cigarettes and delivering parcels using logistics companies. Since April 2022, the government has prohibited the sale of e-cigarettes in the city.
The ICAC said the logistics company involved had tightened its policy after the ban became effective, and would not accept delivery requests for e-cigarette products. The company also required staff to inspect parcels received from customers.
To circumvent the inspection policy, the arrested syndicate members allegedy offered bribes of up to 20 dollars per parcel to the logistics employees. In return, the staff are suspected of helping the syndicate deliver about 200 parcels per day.
ERIC CHAN,Principal Investigator, ICAC said:"We are in touch with the very senior management of the company all along. They are very cooperative.I think in this case, it is an individual incident concerning (the behaviour of) their individual staff members only."
During the operation, the government laboratory conducted tests on seized vaping ites and discovered the nicotine content in one product reached 1000 millilitres, equivalent to the level of 800 traditional cigarettes.
