Millions of vapes seized in England as illegal trade targeted

More than six million illegal vapeo products have been seized in England in the last three years, as has found a new BBC analysis. We join one of the teams responsible for tracking illegal goods while preparing for the prohibition of the sale of unique disposable vapes.

Paul Leighton is packing his backpack with a heavy duty hammer, a door bar and evidence for what he describes as “just one day of greed.”

As a senior commercial standards at the Newcastle City Council, he has learned that the hiding places used to hide illegal vapees can be sophisticated. Sometimes, he has to force his way.

He has found that he found them hidden everywhere from refrigerators and barbecues inside the boxes of false fuses and mosaic panels complete with hydraulic elevators.

“I have seen entire kitchens to leave the walls and the floor too … so all kinds of hiding places,” he says.

Classified as illicit or non -conforming vapos, the products that you will seek today do not meet the legal requirements for sale in the United Kingdom.

More than six million of them were seized in England between 2022 and 2024, according to the BBC analysis.

Connor Lamb, a senior licensing technician, summarizes the health risks they pose to involuntary customers, a senior technician for the license who also participates in checks not announced in stores.

If you get a normal vape, he says: “They have a capacity that is sufficient for 600 puffs, the equivalent of 20 cigarettes.”

But if you get an illegal, “it can be anything since 200 cigarettes in a steam.

According to commercial standards, illicit or non -compliant vaps can be anything with tanks greater than 2 ml, a nicotine resistance of more than 20 ml or labels that do not show details of the manufacturer and health warnings.

The regulatory agency for medications and medical care products is firmly firmly advised to consumers so that they do not use them as true content, and any possible health risk, it is unknown.

On the road, Paul and Connor quickly find a stash of between 12 and 20 packages of illegal vapees in the back of a store counter.

“It would be unusual to have so few in a store that is sold quite cold as this, so it is just a case of where the rest are hiding,” says Paul.

We go to a room at the back of the store. There is a stench of urine. It is full of garbage and we are deeply in apparently empty cardboard boxes.

Paul’s heart is demonstrated that it was properly thought as a search among unearthed garbage in an illegal vapes box.

Of 136 local organizations of commercial standards in England, 133 responded to the requests for freedom of information from the BBC, which shows that between 2022 and 2024:

• At least 6,169,822 illegal or non -compliant vaping products were marked, including those tasks in the ports and axis in stores
• There were 3,766 retail records that sell vapes to children who make test purchases, with some potentially captured retailers more than once
• Retailers were recorded 7,594 times as illicit or non -compliant vaps in Buychases de Testo

The sale of illegal vapes was a factor in at least 316 store closures during that period, while selling children was a factor in at least 67. Most closures were temporary and some retailers may have dropped more than once.

The Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA) insists that most vape stores operate within the law, serving adults who would come to smoke.

A spokesman said: “These business owners would never know in their entirety in criminal activities. Rather, it is that it is from the resurgence of the popularity of the vape of a single sex, and therefore a popular gang with the head involved, we have submitted to the fact that we have done that we have done and we will have seen it.

They said that IBVTA had long asked for a greater application action at the borders to express the flow of illegal products that enter the country.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that it was assigning an additional year of £ 10 million this financial year for commercial standards to address sales of minors and illicit, with an expected 80 compliance officers of additional apprentices that are financed.

Paul and Connor agree that the vapo of a single use are among the main driving forces of illegal trade and expect the next prohibition to improve the situation.

“These are quite sophisticated networks that face us that they are also involved in a lot of slavery, traffic, quite serious and modern drug supply,” says Paul.

“I think we will see much fewer products out of the street because we really had a massive problem with reusable vapees for quite some time.

“They have always fulfilled widely in terms of the devices that are being used, the batteries, the liquids, the strange large tank here.”

As of June 1, it will be illegal for companies in the United Kingdom to sell, supply or have unique use vapes for sale.

Those trapped in doing so will receive a fine in the place of £ 200 in the first instance, increasing to an unlimited sentence of fine and/or imprisonment of up to two years for repeated crimes.

The Government has said that commercial standards may maintain the total value of fines at the point, to reinvest in the application.

The powers and additional funds of the application are something that Ibvta says that it welcomes, noting that “not all commercial standards equipment are equally or adequate of resources” and “some have a regulatory low compliance they cannot carry out the execution of the application tea

But a national commercial spokesman said that his work “was definitely having an impact.”

Government financing had enabled “additional boots on the floor” at Heathrow airport and the port of Dover, said the spokesman, which explained the large number of seizures of the local authorities that house those border points: Hillingdon and Kent.

In Hillingdon alone, 2,099,248 vapeo products were seized between 2022-2024, which represents a third of the total.

They said that Salford was home to a series of vape stores that supply products in England, which means “taking at this stage of the supply chain is really effective.”

However, they said there was still a “great challenge in terms of retailers prepared to sell illegal products, as well as those who persistently sell to children.”

Back in Newcastle, Paul offers a similar evaluation of the task faced at the national level.

He estimates that the number of illegal vapes that still circulate in the country is “easily in millions at this time”, and adds: “It is a constant battle that tries to make a difference.”

Additional reports by Jonathan Fagg and Miguel Roca -terry