This is another street rumor I ran across while reporting on the case of Mike Miske, the former owner of Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, and other businesses, who is now awaiting trial on charges that he controlled and directed a racketeering conspiracy from behind the facade of his many businesses. The specific charges against Miske include murder-for-hire, kidnapping, assault, racketeering conspiracy, drug trafficking, and bank fraud.

According to this rumor, Miske was at some point a confidential informant for the FBI.

The only “official” reference I’ve found to this came in a court filing by disgraced former prosecutor, Katherine Kealoha.

It appears in a document filed by Kealoha opposing release of information from her city personnel file that was being sought by attorney Megan Kau, who represented former Honolulu Police Department Sargeant Albert Lee.

This requires a short digression. Lee was the officer who aggressively pursued Miske after the business owner was stopped for using a cell phone while driving, but drove away before the ticket was issued.

After that incident, Miske telephoned and threatened Jared Spiker, the officer who had pulled him over. Spiker was with Sgt. Lee, his immediate supervisor, when Miske’s call came in, and the call was recorded.

“You better be careful of the choices you made, Jared,” Miske said, in what was taken as a threat. “Don’t even make this a big deal.”

“Don’t go throwing your guys weight around. I can go to the top of the food chain,” Miske said.

In a report on the incident, Lee wrote that Miske appeared to be trying to intimidate Officer Spiker, HPD documents filed in court show.

It wasn’t clear whether the “top of the food chain” comment referred to Katherine Kealoha or her boss, then-Honolulu prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, the administration of then-mayor Kirk Caldwell, or Kealoha’s husband, then-police chief Louis Kealoha.

But within days, Katherine Kealoha contacted Spiker and ordered him to “stand down” and stay away from Miske. Kealoha claimed she was told to contact Miske by Roger Lau, special assistant to then-Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro and deputy-chair of his campaign committee.

The justification for intervening on Miske’ behalf has never been adequately explained. The prosecutor’s office suggested it was because he had helped them out with repairs at the Family Justice Center, an initiative pressed by Kaneshiro. However, Miske’s Kamaaina Plumbing was reportedly a vendor that was paid for their work.

But Katherine Kealoha added another possibility.

In a document filed in federal court on April 24, 2019, Kealoha’s attorney, Kevin Sumida, wrote:

Despite defendant Lee’s present claims, there is no indication to whom Miske was referring when he mentioned “the top of the food chain.” With no evidence, Lee now fantasizes that Miske was referring to the Kealohas, who never met Miske. But of course, Miske could easily have been referring to other authorities, such as the FBI, for whom Miske was allegedly an asset or informant, or the Police Commission, to whom Miske was reportedly considering filing a complaint about Spiker….

As far as I have been able to determine, neither the Kealoha prosecutions nor the Miske case to date have produced evidence to show he might have been an FBI informant, and Katherine Kealoha can’t be considered a reliable source, since she appears to have lied freely and often when she felt it was in her own interest, as evidence in her case demonstrated.

But at some point I was discussing the Miske case with with a friend who owns and operates a small business. He later came back and dropped another version of the rumor.

While talking to a ‘colleague’ yesterday, an interesting piece of gossip rose out of the muck we were talking about.  When queried about Miske, his thoughts were that Miske stayed protected all those years was because he was a snitch for the FBI.
 
He related that Miske was somehow working for the FBI snitching on MS-13 in Hawaii.  

Asked how he knew that, his answer was “everybody in the system knew about it.”    

It all revolved around keeping MS-13 from getting a foothold in Hawaii, while Miske was building his own “enterprise”.

An online search turned up a March 2006 Honolulu Star-Bulletin story reporting that a national anti-gang initiative had resulted in the arrest of two men on Maui who had some MS-13 affiliation, as well as the deportation of several others tied to different gangs.

At the time, Miske was 31, had been convicted of multiple felonies a decade before, and owned Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, a company that federal prosecutor now alleged was being used both to shield Miske’s drug trafficking and launder its proceeds.

The two MS arrests on Maui were part of Operation Shield, a nationwide anti-gang initiative led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Working with county police, FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Operation Shield arrested, and in most cases deported, a total of nine foreign gang members statewide.

“Street gangs pose a growing public safety threat to communities throughout the state of Hawaii,” said Wayne Willis (sic), special agent in charge for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Honolulu. “The violence, sophistication and scope of these organizations have reached intolerable levels in larger metropolitan areas.”

The name of the special agent in charge of Honolulu’s ICE office at the time was Wayne Wills, which was misspelled in the Star-Bulletin story.

At least one of the local gang members picked up during Operation Shield had indirect links back to Miske.

The S-B reported:

» Gregory Yoo Baik Nagao of South Korea, member of the CIRCO Boys gang in Honolulu. He was arrested March 2, and prior convictions include first-degree robbery and possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Federal officials said he came to Hawaii as a child and was here legally in the United States but violated his green card by his felony convictions.

Nagao had been convicted by a jury in 1996 for his role in a botched 1994 robbery in which a taxi driver was shot with a sawed-off shotgun. Nagao received an 8-year sentence. His co-defendant, Norman L. Akau III, who admitted to pulling the trigger, pleaded guilty the previous year and was sentenced to a 20 year term, but gained an early release in 2004, court records show.

In 2009, Akau and Nagao both became members of IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the union representing stage hands in the film industry in Hawaii and in other parts of the country. Nagao was later deported, but Akau went on to be elected to the local union’s executive board. He was an executive board member at the time of his indictment and arrest in July 2020.

Akau reportedly continued to pay Nagao’s union dues, keeping his affiliation active even in his absence. Akau also continued to use Nagao’s email address for his own internal union communications.

Akau was one of ten co-defendants charged along with Miske in a 22-count federal indictment. He and the others were arrested in July 2020, and Akau pleaded guilty a year later to having been part of Miske’s racketeering organization. Akau also admitted to taking part in drug trafficking, a murder-for-hire scheme, and the armed robbery of a rival drug dealer.y

The scenario “makes sense.” A young man with a criminal history and known by law enforcement to be on the way up in that world, is approached for information about a foreign criminal gang that they fear might be making inroads in local communities. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that the guy from Waimanalo might be willing to share what he knew about potential competitors, and maybe walk away with the informal equivalent of a “get out of jail” pass or two for later use as well. Not unreasonable. But still only a rumor, I’m afraid.