NOIDA: A gang of miscreants allegedly involved in selling e-cigarettes (vape) in Noida has been busted with the arrest of six people on Thursday. A total of 405 e-cigarettes worth Rs 15 lakh have been recovered from their possession, cops said. According to the police, the accused are Praveen Gaur, Akash, Aryan Dev – residents of Ghaziabad and Nitin Gupta, Umesh and Biru – residents of Gautam Budh Nagar. Vishal Pandey, additional deputy commissioner of police, said, “A new helpline for our anti-narcotics campaign was launched on Wednesday and on Thursday, we received information about presence of some miscreants near Reliance petrol pump in Sector 63. A trap was then laid and the accused were arrested. During the search, we recovered 405 electronic cigarettes with nicotine as an ingredient.”ACP Amit Pratap Singh said that the gang used to target students from colleges and universities in Noida and Greater Noida. Explaining the modus operandi, Singh said, “The gang would buy the e-cigarettes for Rs 300 to Rs 400 from Connaught Place’s Palika Bazar and sell it for Rs 3,500 to Rs 4,000 in Noida. They also supply these banned e-cigarettes – having ‘Made in China’ stickers – to pan shops in high-end malls of the city. It is a huge nexus and we are trying to get to the roots of it and understand how do these reach Delhi through international borders.”The gang has been active for a year now, the ACP added. An FIR has been registered under the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (production, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage and advertisement) Act, 2019.Four of the arrested accused are shopkeepers and two are peddlers, cops informed. “We are scanning their phones to get details about their accomplice,” Singh said.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/six-nabbed-in-noida-with-405-made-in-china-e-cigarettes/articleshow/97995170.cms