How NSW Health uses children in illicit tobacco shop stings

Teenagers are going undercover in tobacco shop stings and a private contractor is charging the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars to destroy vapes in NSW’s desperate attempts to combat black market tobacco.

The Herald can also reveal Commonwealth anti-tobacco agencies are convicting just a handful of criminals nationally each year, highlighting the difficulty in stamping out the illicit trade.

Court documents obtained by this masthead show NSW Health – the agency in charge of tackling the black market behemoth – enlisted “volunteer” teenagers to investigate El Smokey’s tobacconist in Kingsgrove after a member of the public reported it was selling vapes to children in the 2024 spring school holidays.

“The shop was visited by … environmental health officers from the South Eastern Sydney Public Health Unit, with the assistance of two volunteer teenagers, girls aged 16 and 14 years,” the documents say.

“The 14-year-old was provided with two $50 notes and at approximately 12.05pm the girls entered the shop and approached (a staff member) who was behind the counter.”

The girls asked for Iget Blackberry Ice Bars, but the shop did not stock that particular vape. Instead, the man sold the pair of teenagers a Kuz Passionfruit Mango Lime.

He was later convicted in March this year of selling an e-cigarette to a person under the age of 18.

The tobacconist’s defence lawyer, Ahmad Faraj, said the case showed the enormous burden of time and resources required to prosecute – and noted his client walked away with a good behaviour bond and small fine.

“Police can’t just stop someone on the street and ask them where they got a certain packet of cigarettes or a vape,” Faraj told the Herald.

“If people choose to stay silent, police will have no way of proving anything. They could have simply brought it in from overseas.”

NSW Health said it was “rare” to use children in illicit tobacco stings.

“In very specific, highly controlled compliance and enforcement operations, our enforcement officers can co-ordinate enforcement activities involving attempted purchases by people under the age of 18.

“These enforcement operations are rare and the identity of the volunteers highly confidential.”

While pharmacies can legally sell prescription vapes in NSW, they are otherwise illegal. The mere existence of a legal avenue means authorities cannot form “reasonable suspicion” to search or confiscate vapes on the street, senior police sources say.

This month, the Herald revealed every tobacconist in the inner west suburb of Dulwich Hill was selling illegal vapes, while police warned the city’s gangland was pivoting from drugs to illegal smokes – undoing 20 years of public health progress.

That’s no surprise to prominent vascular surgeon Dr John Crozier, who says a high proportion of hospital beds are occupied “by those suffering for the profits of the smoking industry”.

“It’s obscene – multinational criminal cartels are just laughing,” Crozier told the Herald.

“We see the devastation on the front line of the health services every day.”

Crozier says hospitals are seeing a huge spike in the number of young people struggling to breathe with a new, severe form of pneumonia known as VALI (Vape Associated Lung Injury).

“I find it abhorrent to see how we have destroyed the tapestry for our youth in such a small space of time,” Crozier said.

The difficulties of prosecuting tobacconists are borne out in data, which shows state and federal agencies are convicting just a few people each year in stark contrast to the flood of illicit products on the street.

Illicit tobacco prosecution numbers have not been released by the state government since the end of 2023, when they were averaging about eight a year. NSW Health did not respond to the Herald’s request for numbers of prosecutions from 2025.

NSW Health’s numbers, though small, dwarf the combined might of the federal government’s illicit tobacco taskforce.

The taskforce, which draws together the Australian Tax Office and crime-fighting entities of the Commonwealth under the leadership of the Australian Border Force, managed just four convictions in 2024-25.

Some years the taskforce managed just one conviction.

On Thursday, NSW Health announced a 48-person strong Centre for Regulation and Enforcement to work with other agencies to try to arrest the failure of tobacco enforcement.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the new strike force would “centralise personnel and resources”, although it was not clear how the taskforce would overcome the problems of legal searches, small penalties and expensive destruction of seized vapes.

Multiple police sources have told the Herald that the private contractor disposing of vapes on behalf of the NSW government charges the taxpayer $4500 per kilogram to destroy e-cigarettes.

The high price is because vapes contain batteries and cannot be dumped in landfill due to a fire risk.

Dr Crozier said most of the vapes are manufactured in China – also the origin of most illegal cigarettes in Australia.

NSW Health refused to comment on the cost per kilogram of disposing vapes, but said it confiscated more than 200,000 vapes, 1.4 million illicit cigarettes and 2.8 tonnes of other illegal tobacco products last financial year at a cost of more than $433,000.

“NSW Health uses approved private companies to dispose of seized tobacco and vaping goods,” a spokeswoman for the department said.

The state’s small number of agents work business hours against all-night offenders, who are backed up by international criminal enterprises.

“Enforcement, prosecutions, border control authorities – are all failing. The scale of this is industrial. There are billions going offshore from illicit tobacco,” Crozier said.

“We are structured to fail – our agencies have one hand tied behind their back.”

He is calling for a US-style Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) law which would allow the government to hold people accountable for their minor roles in major criminal enterprises.

“We can’t do this bottom-up – it has to be a decapitation strike on the multinational criminal cartels,” he said.

“You’re supporting a very shady underbelly in what is increasingly occupying the Australian landscape.”

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