Roger Stone is lobbying for a vape firm accused of illegally marketing to kids

Ecto World, a Buffalo, New York–based company that distributes vape products and faces legal troubles, believed it needed an influential friend in Washington, DC.

Over the past three years, officials in New York state and New York City have accused the firm of illegal business practices. In March, police in New York state seized more than 28,000 pounds of illicit vape products linked to the firm, which operates under the name Demand Vape, and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that an investigation had found that the company had been “illegally shipping massive quantities of vape products” across the state and that “criminal charges against Ecto World and its owner will be pursued” by local district attorneys. A year earlier, New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Ecto World and other vape companies for illegally distributing, marketing, and selling addictive candy- and fruit-flavored disposable nicotine products, many produced in China, targeting sales to children and “fueling the youth vaping epidemic.”

New York City filed a similar lawsuit in 2023, claiming that Ecto World; an affiliate named Magellan Technology; Matthew Glauser, president of Ecto and Magellan; and two other Magellan executives violated “nearly every federal, New York State and New York City law applicable to the marketing, distribution, and sale of flavored e-cigarettes, the sales of which are prohibited under laws enacted by all three jurisdictions.”

But as it has come under fire in New York, Ecto World has found a champion in the nation’s capital, one it has paid well for: Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, conspiracy theorist, and political provocateur who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Trump–Russia investigation, sentenced to 40 months in prison, and subsequently pardoned by Trump. Earlier this year, it retained Stone as a lobbyist and, as of the end of June, had compensated him at least $300,000 for his efforts, according to lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress. The reports note that Stone would focus on the “Executive Office of the President” regarding the “regulation of e-cigarettes and related products.”

In an interview with Mother Jones, Glauser said, “Contrary to popular belief, we’re actually a responsible company,” and insisted that its goal is to “fix the broken regulatory system” governing e-cigarettes and vaping products. “The reason we brought Roger Stone on is to accomplish that,” added Glauser, a board member of the Vapor Technology Association, a trade group that has been criticized in right-wing media for not doing enough to stop the flow of illicit vaping products from China into the United States.

Trump’s return to the White House has been a tremendous boon to Stone, who not long ago was claiming he had been nearly bankrupted by legal fees and who, with his wife, was accused by the IRS of not paying nearly $2 million in taxes in a case he settled by agreeing to cover that amount plus interest and penalties.

Since Trump’s restoration, Stone’s lobbying firm, Drake Ventures, has signed up a variety of clients, including two Native American tribes, a rare-earth mineral company, a biotech firm developing vaccines, and Roger Ver, a cryptocurrency investor known as “Bitcoin Jesus” who was indicted on federal fraud and tax charges. Ver paid Stone $600,000 for his services. (In October, months after Stone was hired by Ver, the Justice Department settled the case; Ver paid nearly $50 million in back taxes, penalties, and interest, and the Trump administration dropped the charges against him.) Stone has pulled in over $4 million in fees for his lobbying efforts, according to congressional records.

Working with the DCI Group, a Washington, DC–based lobbying powerhouse, Stone has also been hired to peddle his influence by foreign states, including the governments of the Bahamas and Nigeria, as well as the military junta of Myanmar, which has been paying him $50,000 a month, according to Justice Department filings. Since mounting a violent coup in 2021 that overthrew a democratically elected government, the junta has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

During Trump’s second stint as president, vaping regulation has been a contentious issue—and a cause ripe for lobbyists. Vaping and tobacco companies have pushed for easing restrictions on e-cigarettes and vaping products. In his first administration, Trump imposed limits on flavored e-cigarettes that are widely seen as designed to target children. But in his 2024 campaign, he vowed to “save” vaping and has become an ally of the industry.

Nevertheless, in September, federal agents conducted nationwide raids to seize Chinese-made vape products—illicit Chinese imports comprise much of the vaping market in the United States—and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this marked the beginning of a broader crackdown. “The Chinese are getting richer while our children get sicker, and we’re putting an end to that,” he proclaimed at a press conference.

In March, 71 GOP House members called on the Trump administration “to take decisive action to curb the influx of illegal, youth-oriented e-cigarettes that openly flout U.S. and Chinese law.” One of those congressmen, Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC), claimed the Vapor Technology Association has been “wrapped up” in a “scheme” mounted by China to flood the US market with vape products.

This year, though, Trump took action to help the domestic vaping industry and tobacco firms. He pressured Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary to approve flavored vapes.

Makary opposed doing so, fearing such products increase vaping among minors. But in May, the agency gave an okay to several flavors. A week later, Makary resigned. (Soon after the FDA decision, the New York Times reported that on April 30, tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million to a super PAC supporting Trump, and two days later, executives for Reynolds and another tobacco company had a lunch meeting with Trump and griped about the FDA. During the meal, Trump called Kennedy and Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and complained about the FDA’s regulation of e-cigarettes.)

Stone began lobbying for Ecto World at the start of this year. Was he involved in the decision to approve some flavored products? Glauser declined to say whom Stone was talking to or provide details on his lobbying for the vaping firm. “Roger has good relationships with people in the administration,” Glauser said, noting that Stone was “making sure they hear…our message.” A business associate of Stone, who asked not to be identified, said that Stone had advised Glauser to move away from “bubblegum” flavors and that Glauser was annoyed by that suggestion.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Stone was a prominent lobbyist in Washington, DC, working for the Republican-dominated firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. (The Manafort was Paul Manafort, who in 2016 chaired Trump’s campaign and was subsequently convicted of a bundle of financial crimes and other offenses, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, and eventually pardoned by Trump.) In 1992, Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, as well as several other DC influence-selling outfits, earned the nickname “the torturers’ lobby” for representing authoritarian regimes, dictators, and militant groups accused of human rights abuses. “After his sex scandal”—the National Enquirer in 1996 reported that Stone and his wife had placed ads in swingers magazines seeking sexual partners—“he couldn’t get corporate work,” the Stone business associate said. “Now his sex scandal seems tame, and he’s back to the stuff he did in the Black, Manafort, Stone days.”

Stone did not reply to a request for comment about his lobbying for Ecto World and a list of questions sent to him and to Grant Smith, an attorney listed on Stone’s lobby disclosure report as the contact for Stone’s firm. When a Mother Jones reporter called Smith’s phone number, identified himself, and asked to speak to Smith, the man who answered said, “He’s not available” and hung up. When Smith was later reached, he said: “I’m not talking. I have nothing to say.”

The legal actions filed against Ecto World and its associated companies, as well as other official investigations, have raised questions about the firm’s conduct and ethics.

When the 14 tons of products linked to Ecto World were seized by police in March, Hochul said the seizure was a “major” blow against “illegal operations that put our communities at risk.” In announcing her lawsuit against Ecto World and other vape companies, James blasted these firms for exploiting children: “They’re making nicotine seem cool, getting kids hooked, and creating a massive public health crisis in the process.” (Glauser said in a statement at the time that this lawsuit was “wasting New York taxpayers’ money and federal court time.”)

That lawsuit noted that Magellan Technology, the Ecto affiliate, “contracts with Chinese companies to manufacture certain e-cigarette brands in China, import them into the U.S., and then transfers the products” to Demand Vape, “who then sells and ships the products to other distributors.” Demand Vape, the filing charges, sold banned flavored e-cigarettes to New York distributors and retailers and “profited immensely from their illegal sales,” bringing in $389 million in revenue from its sales in New York from 2018 to 2024.

The suit alleged that Demand Vape “routinely accepted import shipments falsely labeled as ‘battery chargers,’ even though they were aware that the contents were flavored e-cigarettes” and had “long been aware that their commercial conduct is illegal.” It contended that Demand Vape has “targeted adolescents” for its flavored vape products.

The New York City lawsuit against Ecto World, Magellan Technology, Glauser, and others, which was filed in federal court, claimed, “So flagrant is Defendants’ law-breaking that Magellan-Demand Vape’s owner publicly admits…‘[to] ensur[ing] that retailers across New York can offer’ flavored e-cigarettes—despite the plain prohibition against sales enacted under federal, State and New York City law.”

“I don’t comment on active litigation, but we will have our day in court and we will be fine,” Glauser told Mother Jones. He did not respond to a list of detailed questions subsequently sent to him about Ecto World’s activities, the lawsuits it faces, and Stone’s lobbying on its behalf.

Ecto World and its affiliates have been subject to other government investigations. Earlier this year, the US International Trade Commission launched an investigation into Ecto World, Magellan Technology, and 14 other vape companies based in the United States or China for unfair trading practices. Ecto World and Magellan subsequently sought an order from a federal appeals court to terminate or stay the investigation; in June, their petition was rejected.

In December 2024, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, then the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent a letter to Glauser, noting, “The United States is currently experiencing an unacceptably high level of youth e-cigarette use, fueled in significant part by illegal tobacco products illicitly imported from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” He pointed out that “it appears that your company openly distributes flavored disposable vapes made in the PRC which are marketed and sold in the U.S. without FDA authorization. These devices put millions of young Americans at risk for developing a lifelong nicotine addiction. During adolescence, exposure to nicotine through products like e-cigarettes can also harm brain development, particularly the parts of the brain related to attention, learning, mood, and impulse control. Sales of these unauthorized tobacco products are not only clearly prohibited, but also immensely harmful.”

Krishnamoorthi requested that Ecto World provide information on its business operations and its dealings with China. Glauser never responded, according to Krishnamoorthi’s office.

In 2021, the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into Magellan Technology for “suspected conspiracy to defraud the United States Government of revenue,” according to internal DHS documents obtained by Mother Jones. These investigative reports noted the agency “received information that Magellan Technology is undervaluing vape pens imported from China to evade 2.6% duty and 25% tariff.” Homeland Security Investigations conducted surveillance of the company’s office and a search of the office and a warehouse used by the firm.

The investigation, according to a DHS memo, “determined that Magellan Technology Inc. failed to pay millions of dollars in import duties.” The case concluded with Magellan cutting a check for $23 million in unpaid duties and penalties.

The lobbying disclosure form that Stone had to file regarding his representation of Ecto World included a question that asks, “Have any of the lobbyists listed on this report been convicted in a Federal or State Court of an offense involving bribery, extortion, embezzlement, an illegal kickback, tax evasion, fraud, a conflict of interest, making a false statement, perjury, or money laundering?”

Stone checked the yes box and added: “Obstruction of Proceeding, False Statements, Witness Tampering. Mr. Stone received a Presidential Pardon for all of these offenses in 2020.”

Asked whether Stone’s convictions for these crimes caused him any concern, Glauser said, “I don’t judge people by their past.”