From an office at 15 minutes in the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, a small business helped import millions of unauthorized vapers manufactured in China only last year, forming a key link in the supply chain that feeds the US demand for illegal electronic cigarettes.
In just over four years, the company – a customs agency led by Jay Kim – became a reference intermediary for the Chinese vapeo industry. In 2024, he worked in 60 % of all vapers and their components from China to the US, registered by the Food and Medicines Administration (FDA), according to a Reuters analysis.
“Many of them are authorized by the FDA,” Kim said in an interview in his office in April, referring to vape drivers who handled his company.
However, FDA data on imports of regulated products, such as tobacco or medicines, showed that the products that Kim’s company helped to enter included unauthorized brands such as Lost Mary and Geek Bar.
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The FDA has declared the import and sale of these brands illegal, warning that its variety of fruit and sweet flavors can be attractive to minors. The agency states that nicotine can damage the developing brain and affect the attention, learning and mood of young people, who can become more easily addicted to this substance.
A spokesman for Lost Mary said he had no connection or contact with Kim’s company, and said that flavors are fundamental to help adults quit smoking.
The Chinese city of Shenzhen is the largest source of vapers, both legal and illegal, that arrive in the United States. In 2024, China exported more than 26 billion yuan (3,600 million dollars) in vape drivers to the US, according to Chinese customs data.
However, American customs figures show that only 333 million dollars were officially registered in Chinese vapers that same year. The discrepancies between the customs data of the United States and its commercial partners are not uncommon, but a 90 % gap is unusual, according to commerce specialists.
Unauthorized vapers usually come camouflaged like other articles – shoes, toys – according to the FDA, which leads efforts to control the vapeo market.
Reuters used FDA data and US customs, interviews with tobacco and vapeo industry sources, and information on regulators and security forces, to rebuild how these unauthorized products reach American shelves.
He found a group of intermediaries based in the United States, including customs and distributors agents, who played key roles in the supply chain and, sometimes, took measures to avoid being detected.
Trump administration officials have promised stricter measures. The FDA Commissioner Marty Makary declared that the agency would stop illegal imports and distribution.
“Our borders have been too porous in the face of challenges such as the arrival of illegal electronic cigarettes from other countries,” said an FDA spokesman, adding that the agency plans to use artificial intelligence to “curb the flow of products that attract children in our country.”
In May, the FDA and the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the seizure in Chicago of vape drivers not authorized for a value of 34 million dollars. The authorities discovered that many shipments seized in February contained inaccurate descriptions and incorrect values.
As part of the operation, the agency first sent letters to 24 intermediaries involved in the vapeo supply chain, including imports and US customs agents.
The letters warned that making false statements to the government is a crime, and asked intermediaries to explain how they ensure compliance with tobacco laws, according to FDA.
Customs agents do not buy or sell merchandise directly. On the other hand, they receive payments – generally from the importer – to manage customs procedures, present documents and respond to consultations of the border authorities, explained Lenny Feldman, director of the Sandler Slip, Travis & Rosenberg.
According to Feldman, agents could be violating the law if they do not perform due diligence. In brief statements to Reuters in April, Kim said that his company had stopped handling vape drivers after leaving the business last year.
He said that a former employee involved him with vapeo clients and took those customers when he left. However, the FDA data show that shipments managed by Kim continued throughout 2025, even in June.
The FDA collaborates with the CBP to detect unauthorized shipments on the border. A CBP spokesman informed Reuters that in 2024 the agency seized more than 3 million units of illegal vapers, valued at 76 million dollars.
“The CBP has identified malicious agents that use shipments to transport illegal merchandise, including illegal vapeters, synthetic opioids, chemical precursors and related paraphernalia,” said the spokesman.
The FDA declared that, in the last two years, the joint efforts with the CBP have led to the seizure of approximately 7.1 million electronic cigarettes, with an estimated retail value in more than 136 million dollars.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said that the administration would eliminate vapers with fruit flavors and sweets from China that attract minors.
“We are going to eliminate them all,” he said to the Senatorial Committee of Health, Education, Work and Pensions in May.
Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamorthi said that intermediaries such as Kim have some responsibility for the avalanche of vapeters, but attributed most of the guilt to the FDA, which he accused of inaction.
“FDA is a disaster. It is asleep,” he said. “There are illegal vapers everywhere.”
‘Vape’ traffic in full view
Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration to Chinese products, as well as recent seizures, have already reduced supply. In May, the shipments of vapemen registered by the FDA fell, mainly due to the shortage of the popular Geek Bar brand.
The FDA has authorized 34 vapeo products manufactured by companies such as British American Tobacco and Altria, but none with fruit or sweet flavors, which according to the agency could be attractive to minors.
However, Bat Executives estimate that unauthorized devices represent 70 % of vape drivers sales in the US.
It all starts with a network of exporters based in China. Once the shipment is dispatched by American customs, it passes to its buyer, usually a distributor, who sells it to wholesalers and retailers throughout the country.
The FDA collects data on the recipients of these shipments. In 2024, the Major was Reynolds American, the American Bat subsidiary. But among the main ten receptors there were six little -known companies, founded in 2023 or 2024, some of which operated from residential homes.
The second largest shipping receiver in 2024 was Somo Trade LLC, a company based in Chicago, established in 2023, according to FDA data analysis and state commercial documents.
A woman in the registered direction of the business – a house in northern Chicago – told Reuters that the property was not related to vapeo. Another receiver, Rongda Trade, is registered on the same street, was founded the same month and has already been closed, according to its records.
Meanwhile, in February, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, sued 13 companies, which she accused of collaborating closely with Chinese manufacturers to promote the market of unauthorized vapemen.
“Together, the defendants have established an electronic cigarette industry with flavors – specially disposable – and a lucrative participation in this boom market has been ensured,” says the demand.
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“Everyone has incurred illegal and reproachable behaviors, and their goal is to generate addiction among young people to their products.”
Mitch Zeller, former director of the FDA Tobacco Products Center, blamed the distributors based in the United States, as those mentioned in James’s demand, to feed the demand.
“There is only a handful of intermediaries – intermediate companies – responsible for taking illegal products, importing them poorly classified and putting them into commercial circulation in the country,” he said.
With Reuters information
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