A market monitoring unit in Hanoi has discovered and detained 13,900 illegal e-liquid tubes worth billions of Vietnam dong at a transport establishment.

The seizure of the e-liquid, which is used in e-cigarettes and also known as e-juice or vape juice, was made at a transport establishment on Pham Hung Street in Bac Tu Liem District on Friday.

Local market monitors in collaboration with relevant police forces discovered these products during their inspection at the venue.

The seized e-liquid tubes include 8,800 tubes of 30ml and 5,100 tubes of 100ml.

At the time of inspection, the establishment’s owner was absent. 

Calculated at market prices for such products, VND100,000 (US$4.3) for each 30ml-tube and VND200,000 ($8.6) per 100ml-tube, the total value of the seized goods amounts to billions of dong (VND1 billion = US$43,000).  

This is the largest volume of e-liquid having been detected and seized by the market surveillance unit recently, said Nguyen Dao An, deputy head of the team.

The owner of the e-liquid batch was merely identified as a person named Mai, An said, adding that his team could still not get in contact with Mai.

The team will try to meet Mai next week to investigate into the illegal products, the team’s leader said.

The Ministry of Health has recently warned that precautions should be taken against new generation tobacco products (NGTPs) including electronic nicotine delivery systems and heated tobacco products, which have yet to be governed by the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms.

Currently, the consumption and trading of NGTPs is taking place complicatedly. These products have been widely available on e-commerce websites, social networks or even points of sale of traditional cigarettes.

As such NGTPs have yet to be put under any regulations, several agencies have suggested that an adequate legal framework should be adopted so that authorities can deal with smuggled products effectively.

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