TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNW) – A Wyandotte County business has been ordered to pay $30,000 in penalties for selling counterfeit e-cigarette products according to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
Vinodbhai Patel, operator of Jay Ganesh, LLC, and the company were ordered to pay $30,000 in civil penalties in a consent judgment approved Tuesday in Wyandotte County District Court. The defendants also were ordered to reimburse the cost of the attorney general’s investigation into their business practices.
The attorney general alleged that the defendants knowingly misled consumers by falsely representing e-cigarette products to be authentic branded merchandise when in fact they were not. The counterfeit products involved in this case included vaping devices and vaping liquids.
The consumer-protection judgment is the third reached by Schmidt’s office in the past six months addressing counterfeit e-cigarette products discovered by the attorney general’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit.
In September 2020, Veneeth Kanti, Gayatri Kanti and Morani, Inc., doing business as Logan 66, were ordered to pay $7,500 in civil penalties and the costs of the attorney general’s investigation in a case filed in Franklin County.
In October 2020, Aaron Dune and Smoke Stax, LLC, were ordered to pay $5,000 in civil penalties and the costs of the attorney general’s investigation in a case filed in Sedgwick County.
