The Justice Department, together with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), announced that recent actions targeting unauthorized flavored e-cigarettes, or vapes, resulted in the seizure of more than 2.1 million illicit vaping products taken from five distributors and six retailers across seven different states.
In seizure complaints and accompanying court papers filed in U.S. District Court, the government alleged that the distributors and retailers where the electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products were seized received previous warnings from the FDA that their ENDS products required premarket authorization before they could legally be sold. According to the seizure complaints, recent FDA inspections and undercover purchases by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) showed that the firms continued to sell or distribute unauthorized ENDS products.
The seizures were carried out by the U.S. Marshals Service, ATF agents, and other law enforcement partners, with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and FDA.
The Department of Justice also filed civil injunctive actions against the distributors and retailers where the products were seized to prevent future violations. Those complaints allege that the defendants continued to market adulterated and misbranded tobacco products despite receiving warnings from FDA that they were violating the law. The injunction actions were filed against the same entities where the seizures took place along with related individuals, including:
- Tampa Vapor, a Tampa, Florida company, and its owner, Michael R. Synychak, filed in the Middle District of Florida;
- Progressive Retail Inc., doing business as Rainbow Food Mart, a Tampa, Florida company, and its president, Varun Chawla, filed in the Middle District of Florida;
- Bouslimi Holdings, Inc., doing business as Marathon/Food Center, a Tampa, Florida company, and its president, Imed Bouslimi, filed in the Middle District of Florida;
- A Joint Effort, Inc. doing business as Blvd Smoke Shop, a Miami, Florida, company, and its officer and director, Husam Bahhur, filed in the Southern District of Florida;
- Calle 8 Petroleum LLC, doing business as UGAS/Circle K, a company based in Miami, Florida, and its owner, Rashid A. Saeed, filed in the Southern District of Florida;
- Smoke House Sunset, a company based in Los Angeles, California, and its owner, Ali Masoud, filed in the Central District of California;
- D&A Distribution, LLC, doing business as Strictly E-Cig, a corporation based in Savannah, Georgia, and owner Robert S. Ali, filed in the Southern District of Georgia;
- PSM101, LLC doing business as Center Point Distributors, a corporation based in South Plainfield, New Jersey, and its owner Niravkumar G. Vora, filed in the District of New Jersey;
- B&G Trading LLC doing business as Vaportech Wholesale, a corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona, and its co-owners Ataman Bilgin and Hasmet Girgin, filed in the District of Arizona;
- Midwest Goods Inc. doing business as Midwest Distribution and Midwest Distribution Illinois, a corporation based in Bensenville, Illinois, and its owner and CEO, Kamran Yasin, filed in the Northern District of Illinois; and
- Dream Distro LLC, a company based in Garner, North Carolina, and its owner, Faisal A. Alhadrami, filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
An additional injunctive action was filed against Gorilla Vapes LLC, a New Jersey company, and its co-owners Nick Jurczyk and Russell Jurczyk, in the District of New Jersey.
Under the law, ENDS manufacturers generally must obtain premarket review of new tobacco products and obtain FDA’s marketing authorization before they can be legally sold through interstate commerce. In each of the seizure actions, the court issued a warrant authorizing the seizure of specified unapproved vapes that lacked marketing authorization.
Trial Attorneys Coleen Schoch, James T. Nelson, Roger Gural, Zachary L. Cowan, and Pauline A. Stamatelos of the Justice Department’s Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch are handling the cases under the leadership of Sarmad Khojasteh, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Scott D. Heffron for the Northern District of Illinois, Carlos Raurell for the Southern District of Florida, Joseph Bozdech for the District of Arizona, and other AUSAs from districts across the country provided critical support, along with attorneys at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of General Counsel and FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel.
