A longtime friend surprised me with this recent comment putting the racketeering case against Honolulu business owner Michael John Miske, Jr. into perspective.

He has had perhaps the longest and most lucrative run of any crime boss in Hawaii history. And I knew them all! Some of them pretty well. None of them I knew had anywhere near the accumulated wealth or influence or longevity.

Think back through the names that have been in the headlines over the past 6 decades. Jim Dooley’s book can help. “Sunny Skies, Shady Characters” can provide a crash course or simply refresh your memory about Hawaii’s underworld figures, and is available as a Kindle instant download.

George Chung
John Kim
Alema Leota
Harold “Biggie” Chan
Nappy Pulawa
Charley Stevens

My friend’s comment rings true. None of these reputed crime bosses managed to translate their ill-gotten gains into a string of “legitimate” businesses, and a flow of laundered profits, comparable to Miske’s alleged operation built on and around his Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control.

Only Larry Mehau, often reputed but never proven to be a leading organized crime figure, grew his security company, Hawaii Protective Association, into a large business with many government contracts.

But my sense is that even those who accused Mehau of being the “godfather” of local organized crime didn’t believe he was as hands-on as the federal indictment paints Mike Miske to be.

It seems that every so often, a federal racketeering case opens a window and provides a public look inside the structure of Hawaii’s organized crime.

In 1992, it was the trial of Charley Stevens, who was said to have controlled organized crime on the Waianae coast.

Then in 2009, it was the the murder and racketeering trial of Ethan “Malu” Motta and Rodney Joseph, both of whom called Stevens “Uncle,” although only Joseph was actually related.

Now the case against Miske and his alleged criminal crew appears certain to bring the public’s understanding of the shape of organized crime into the 21st Century, whatever the verdicts ultimately agreed to by a federal jury.

And, if we’re lucky, this will reveal the next layer of corruption.

My friend parted with this additional comment.

There has to be more than (Miske’s) friendship with Kealoha and miscellaneous political contributions to account for how he operated for so many years with apparent impunity in public.”