Inside the Federal Task Force Seizing Millions of Illegal Vaping Products
When the federal government has moved most decisively against illegal e-cigarettes, it has done so through a structure that didn’t exist two years ago. The interagency e-cigarette task force, established by DOJ and FDA in June 2024, coordinates enforcement activity across multiple agencies and has produced the largest individual seizures in the enforcement record. A March 2026 GAO report (GAO-26-107991) provides the most complete public accounting of the task force’s membership and activities.
The task force brings together DOJ’s Civil Division, U.S. Marshals Service, and ATF; FDA; U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations within DHS; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; and the Federal Trade Commission. Each contributes what it does best. DHS entities intercept unauthorized products at the border. The Postal Inspection Service investigates products moving through the mail system. The FTC provides market intelligence and handles false advertising enforcement. DOJ and FDA co-lead and provide the core enforcement and regulatory authorities.
The task force’s creation was recommended in 2022 by the Reagan-Udall Foundation following an evaluation of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, which had identified interagency coordination as a gap in federal tobacco enforcement. The recommendation was to make tobacco enforcement a government-wide priority rather than a single-agency function.
The results since the task force launched have been the most visible enforcement actions in the GAO record:
In October 2024, a joint action led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection resulted in the seizure of 3 million e-cigarette products originating in China, with an estimated retail value of $76 million. In February 2025, a joint action in Chicago—led primarily by FDA and Customs—resulted in the seizure of 2 million units with an estimated retail value of $33.8 million. In September 2025, DOJ announced a sweep involving more than 2 million illicit vaping products seized from distributors and retailers across seven states, connected to the civil forfeiture actions initiated by the Civil Division and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices.
A technical note from the report: the October 2024 and February 2025 seizures were not counted as formal DOJ enforcement actions in GAO’s analysis because DOJ was not the lead agency on those specific proceedings. This means the headline figure of 88 enforcement actions understates the total federal activity against unauthorized e-cigarettes during the period—the task force’s joint work produced significant outcomes that exist in a separate accounting from DOJ’s own formal action count.
The task force’s stated goals—information sharing among federal partners and coordination of enforcement actions—represent a meaningful structural improvement over the previous fragmented approach. Whether that structure survives the current administration’s reprioritization of ATF and the ongoing reorganization of FDA is a question the report leaves open. What the task force’s record demonstrates, at minimum, is that coordinated multi-agency action against illegal e-cigarette distribution is operationally viable and capable of producing large-scale results when pursued.