THE LONG READ: How the cigarette kings bought the vaping industry

KINGSLEY Wheaton found himself in the middle of a coup d’état. It was 1999. At 23, he had joined the cigarette manufacturer, Rothmans, who had sent him to Dubai.

When British American Tobacco (BAT) acquired Rothmans, Wheaton was relocated to West Africa, to Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast, to promote a portfolio of brands including Craven A, Benson & Hedges and Rothmans.

Abidjan, colloquially known as the Paris of Africa, was a desirable posting, but, at the turn of the millennium, stability was ending. On Christmas Eve, President Henri Konan Bédié was overthrown. “We were locked in our houses with gunfire going on for three days,” Wheaton says. “It was quite spicy.”