Editor's note: The following is the May 13, 2026 edition of our Ukraine Business Roundup weekly newsletter. To get the biggest news in business and tech from Ukraine directly in your inbox, subscribe here.This newsletter wasn’t meant to be about illegal e-cigarettes in Ukraine. But I stumbled across a law enforcement operation yesterday — and immediately knew it would be the focus of this week's edition.While running an errand on Tuesday afternoon at Kyiv’s central Gulliver mall, I noticed two very tall men, presumably law enforcement officers, standing at an e-cigarette kiosk as employees handed over merchandise for them to bag and log as evidence.I walked into the shop right next to it and when the shopkeeper asked if I needed help finding anything (I really did), I told her I was just looking and pretended to shop while keeping a close eye on the operation. I know — it was a bit voyeuristic, but after writing about raids over the years without ever having seen one in person, I couldn't quite resist the opportunity.Remembering my lunch break was ending soon, I finally admitted to the shopkeeper that I would need her help. As she was ringing me up, I thought I'd get in some gossip, and, leaning toward her, I quietly asked, "What's going on? Is it a search or something?" — knowing full well what was happening. "Mhm, all over Kyiv today," she replied.A detective from the Bureau of Economic Security searching an illegal vape and e-cigarette vendor in Kyiv during an earlier raid on March 19, 2026. (Bureau of Economic Security)A detective from the Bureau of Economic Security searching an illegal vape and e-cigarette vendor in Kyiv during an earlier raid on March 19, 2026. (Bureau of Economic Security)Indeed, I quickly discovered that Ukrainian law enforcement had launched around 100 searches targeting illegal vape vendors across the country, not just the capital. Ukraine's Bureau of Economic Security searched and confiscated products from e-cigarette sellers in 12 regions, including Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and Zakarpattia, Pavlo Buzdyhan, the bureau’s deputy director, later told Kyiv Independent reporter Dominic Culverwell.The operation comes as the bureau — under the leadership of Oleksandr Tsyvinsky, who took office last August after the government controversially tried to block his selection — ramps up efforts to tackle tax dodgers that cost the country up to $24.4 billion in lost revenue each year, Culverwell writes.Ukraine's vape industry is flooded with dodgy producers and sellers that smuggle goods, hide up to 90% of their tax obligations from authorities, or manufacture vapes and liquids without a license, Buzdyhan told him.In recent months, Tsyvinsky has worked to reform the bureau, once seen as a financial mafia that carried out heavy-handed raids, by focusing on reining in illegal businesses in specific sectors such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, electronics, and construction, according to our reporting.