American officials are pounding a robust offensive against a wave of sophisticated illicit vapeo products that flood US markets, many of which seem designed to attract adolescents and avoid the detection of parents, according to ABC news investigation.
The new generation of products, most of which are imported from China, have vapeo mechanisms that are hidden as backpacks, smartphone boxes, highlights and portable video game consoles, officials said officials. The products, some of which include LED lighting, bluetooth connectivity or hidden compartments, allow adolescents to vapus discreetly while trying to evade parents and teachers.
“So it is very possible that the child can go: ‘Hey, mom and dad, do I want to get these headphones, I want to get this video console’, and the parents, without knowing it, are buying vapors from their children?” ABC News presenter Linsey Davis asked the Customs Official and Border Protection of the United States, Eric Everson.
“That could happen, yes,” Everson said.
‘Just a small fraction’
The federal authorities are treating the flood vapes flood in the country as an international threat to the youth of the United States. In 2024, CBP seizures of “electronic nicotine delivery systems”, which include vapes, had a national value of $ 34 million. And in just the first six months of 2025, CBP seizures had a national value of $ 60.3 million.
Despite the prohibition of flavor vapes, stores throughout the United States continue to sell cartridges such as “Pineapple Express” and “Killer Custerard Blueberry.”
In Louisiana, federal agents of the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and US Explosives. They have been seized vapes hidden in safes, vehicles and concealments made as traps. The agency told ABC News that it is taking “so much product” that officials have had to drastically increase the capacity of tenure facilities where they store seized products.
The New York City Sheriff’s office assaults a vape store in July 2025.
ABC News
It is the same situation in Chicago, where 4 million vape sticks sit in an application warehouse.
“Does it make any sense what type of percentage is this of everything that is illegally?” Davis asked Everson about the 4 million vapos.
“This is just a small fraction of the seizures we have here,” Everson replied.
‘Attentive to children’
The vapeo industry, which has existed for more than a decade, is currently worth billions of dollars, according to industry experts and law application. He CDC Foundation He has discovered that more than 20 million electronic cigarettes are sold in the US.
But experts suggest that the illicit vopeo industry is even bigger, with A group of experts Estimating that around 240 million vaping devices were sold in the United States in 2024.
It is part of an innovation boom, with the United States that represents almost two thirds of Chinese vopes exports, according to the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce. And although vapeo rates among adolescents have decreased in recent years, more than 1.6 million American children reported that they used vape products in a national youth tobacco survey in 2024.
A continuous tendency between the illicit vapeos that enter the country is that they often have sugary flavors, despite a 2020 prohibition throughout the country of flavor cartridges, and the elegant and colorful marketing that is explicitly directed towards young people, authorities say.
Brian King, a former drug and food administration official in the United States, said they are not only flavors and packaging used to attract young people, but the solid marketing campaigns in popular social networks applications.
“It is a variety of factors,” said King, who now serves as executive vice president of the campaign for children without tobacco, a defense group destined to prevent the use of adolescent tobacco. “We know that flavors are attractive to children, but we also know that they are promoted in channels that can be attractive to children, even in social networks and other places.”
According to the FDA, electronic cigarettes are the most used tobacco product among young people who reported the current use of tobacco. In some cases, nicotine in some vape products is equal to 35 cigarette packages, according to experts, which makes them very addictive and dangerous for young children and adults whose brains have not yet developed completely.
Brian King, with the campaign for children without tobacco, shows Linsey Davis of ABC News, the new generation of vapos that attract adolescents.
ABC News
Last April, more than two dozen state prosecutors wrote a letter asking the Trump administration to support “fighting the avalanche of Chinese illegal products, including illegal Chinese electronic cigarettes marketed in minors.”
“While we are doing everything possible to combat the problem in the United States, its nature and scope are international,” wrote the Bipartisan Coalition of General Prosecutors. “President Trump can ensure our borders against this influx of dangerous products and hold China responsible for taking advantage of American young people.”
‘We can’t rest in our laurels’
Currently, there are 39 total vape products authorized by the FDA, all with tobacco and menthol flavor.
And despite a national prohibition in flavored cartridges imposed by the FDA in 2020, taste products remain widely available in convenience stores, smoke stores and online markets throughout the country. The FDA has issued more than 800 warning letters to retailers to sell these products.
In cities throughout the country, the Local Police are taking energetic measures against illicit vapes going to smoke stores and taking advantage of illicit products.
“It is important, because you have people who are children who buy these things,” said Sergeant Michael Thorp of the New York Sheriff’s office. “You don’t know what is in the product.”
Thorp told ABC News during a trip to vapue stores throughout New York City that find illicit vapes every day.
Despite the progress made by the US authorities in curbing unlawful vape imports, King warned that a “quick dynamic panorama” makes vapes a persistent threat to young Americans.
“We cannot rest in our laurels,” King warned, who said that the authorities must keep the pace “as the landscape and manufacturers continue to evolve.”
“We must … prevent these products from getting into children,” he said.
