Two local men boarded a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Los Angeles on a mid-July day in 2014. Each had a carry-on bag containing $200,000 in cash allegedly provided by Honolulu businessman Mike Miske, the owner of Kamaaina Termite and several other local companies, who is now facing multiple criminal charges in federal court. The men’s assignment was to meet a “Mexican cocaine source” in Los Angeles and bring a load of the drug weighing more than 20 pounds back to Honolulu where it would be distributed and sold, the test run for what they hoped would become a new cocaine supply line to Hawaii for Miske’s “enterprise.”
These and other details of the 2014 drug deal are contained in a document filed last week in Honolulu’s federal district court.
One of the travelers, Michael Buntenbah (also known as Michael Malone), “had a reputation for moving (selling) large amounts of drugs quickly,” according to last week’s filing.
Buntenbah is one of ten people arrested and charged with being part of the criminal group headed by Miske, which allegedly used his businesses as fronts to either hide or facilitate crimes ranging from drug dealing to money laundering to murder.
Attorneys for Buntenbah have appealed a magistrate’s decision that he must remain in federal detention until their trial, which isn’t scheduled until September 2021 at the earliest. Buntenbah’s attorneys say prosecutors didn’t provide enough evidence to show that he fails to meet federal guidelines allowing pre-trial release.
In response, prosecutors filed a document in court last Friday providing details Buntenbah’s role in the 2014 drug deal. The document also reviewed Buntenbah’s finances, with assets of $1,948,000, including $75,000 in a checking account and equity in real property he has an interest in.
Prosecutors say that during an earlier detention hearing on July 24, Buntenbah and his attorneys failed “to provide evidence that the $75,000 in his checking account or any equity in the real properties he owned or had an interest in were derived from legitimate income from his businesses or any other lawful source.”
A hearing on the appeal of Buntenbah’s detention order is scheduled to take place electrically later this morning.
According to prosecutors, Buntenbah and the other member of Miske’s criminal enterprise checked into the Marriott Hotel at Los Angeles airport. Then the other man met with his Mexican supplier, who arranged for them to be driven to San Francisco after exchanging the cash for the cocaine. Buntenbah allegedly “knew a corrupt Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee who would help them smuggle the drugs through airport security at a San Francisco area airport back to Hawaii.”
The men were then driven to a house in Reseda, California, where they met with others who arrived in two other cars. “The three vehicles then left the residence and met again at a suspected stash house in Van Nuys, California. All three vehicles left the stash house together and began traveling northbound on the 405 freeway,” prosecutors allege.
The whole transaction had been tracked by Los Angeles DEA agents using court-authorized “wire interceptions” that were “part of a long term drug trafficking investigation being conducted by the Los Angeles DEA.”
Based on intercepted text messages and wire taps, DEA surveillance units were watching the group from the time they met at the house in Reseda. One person targeted by the DEA surveillance had reportedly been in Hawaii to discuss the possible arrangement to supply drugs, prosecutors allege.
The three-car caravan was stopped by police in Montebello, California.
Buntenbah and the other Hawaii man “were passengers in a Chevrolet Sonic drive by an indivdual named Jorge Sandoval. Approximately ten kilograms of cocaine was found and seized from a Honda Civic which was traveling with the Chevy Sonic and a third vehicle.”
Both Hawaii men were arrested at the scene, but “were released within a day or so and were never charged in California.
Miske’s alleged role in financing the large California cocaine deal was apparently unknown to FBI agents in Hawaii until it was disclosed by a confidential informant sometime in 2018, the documents show.
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Fascinating – another reason to look forward to your (almost) daily posts. Keep ’em coming.
Butenbah was a bouncer at M Nightclub in 2013 the year before this incident. Cocaine is popular as a nightclub drug. Probably had easy access to party going users. The chronics we see in the street are on meth. Thats a whole different crowd.
You know who else used cocaine?
“Katherine Kealoha used cocaine while serving in the city Prosecutor’s Office, where she oversaw the career criminal unit, newly-filed court documents allege.
In an application for a search warrant filed Thursday ? complete with text messaging strings users sent while apparently high ? authorities said Kealoha used the drug while spending time with other drug users and distributors.”
The iceberg tantalize’s as it slowly melts away. Revealing its evil core!
Bigger fish are yet to fry. How big and how high?
As rats quiver in fear, LSD is in demand for realities escape.
No possibility remains too large, sacred no more.
The Feds pull the strings in demand for leniency in lieu of revealing epic heights of corruption. Life in prison or the Death Penalty awaits, those who fail too cooperate, naming the whales!
I am a little late on your recent postings. I just wanted to chime in that your coverage of this investigation of the Miske organization is really appreciated and unsurpassed. Thanks for keeping the public in the loop and the case on a front burner for people to read about.