It was the day before Christmas in 2003, a busy day at the Costco warehouse store in Waipio, when police responded to reports of a disturbance in the parking lot. When officers reached the scene, they separated two men who had been arguing and squaring off against each other, ready to fight.

“You don’t know who I am”

One of the men was 29-year old Michael J. Miske Jr., the owner of Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, a small company started just three years previously. The other was Michael Botha, the 35-year old owner owner of a competing fumigation business, Sandwich Isle Termite and Pest Control, which he had started in 1997 after coming to Hawaii as district manager for Terminix, a large national company entering the Hawaii market.

At the time, Kamaaina Termite was struggling to establish itself in the industry, and was experiencing financial difficulties. In June 2003, the company was hit with a tax lien for $30,397.82 in unpaid federal taxes owed to the IRS for the prior two years. That would be the equivalent of $53,786 in today’s dollars due to inflation.

More than a decade later, in March 2014, the FBI launched a broad investigation of Miske. The following year, Botha was contacted for information about industry practices, and ended up telling federal investigators about the confrontation at Costco. Botha said Miske had accused him of “talking trash” about Kamaaina Termite, and had warned him that there would be consequences if he didn’t stop competing with Miske’s firm.

“You don’t know who I am,” Miske reportedly warned him back in 2003. “You don’t know what I’m about,” adding that he knew where Botha lived. Botha’s statement was recounted in several affidavits by FBI agents in support of applications for search warrants filed between 2015 and 2019. These search warrant applications were made public in 2022 and are now part of the court record.

Testimony

Botha appeared earlier this month as a witness against Miske, who is currently standing trial in Honolulu’s Federal District Court. Prosecutors allege he was the power behind the “Miske Enterprise,” a criminal organization he controlled and directed. He faces 19 charges ranging from racketeering conspiracy, murder for hire conspiracy resulting in death, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and assault in aid of racketeering, to bank fraud and obstruction of justice. Twelve co-defendants pleaded guilty before trial, and most are cooperating with prosecutors. The trial, which began January 8, is expected to last well into the summer.

Botha, now 56, is originally from South Africa, where his family owned and operated the largest fumigation company in the country, according to his testimony. He served in the South African army as a young man, and saw combat in the country’s border wars of the 1980s before coming to the U.S. to study entomology. When his family sold their company, he stayed in the U.S. and went to work for Terminix International as a training manager and then as a regional technical specialist. When Terminix initiated a foothold in Hawaii by buying up smaller firms, he became the responsible managing employee for Terminix in the islands.

After three years, he left Terminix, and in 1997 started his own company, Sandwich Isle Termite. Initially a one-man show, it eventually grew to 112 employees, Botha said. He sold the company back to Terminix in 2016 for $13 million. He is now an investor and entrepreneur based in Montana, where his business interests include real estate investment, consulting, producing naturally raised American Bison and meat products, and a fence construction business, according to his entry on LinkIn.com.

Under questioning from prosecutors, Botha spoke about the Costco incident. Miske said he had heard that Sandwich Isle was spreading negative information about Kamaaina, and wanted to go outside and fight, Botha said.

“Did you go outside?”

Botha replied, “Yes.”

“He said he knew where I lived, and that he would slash my tents and let the gas out,” Botha testified.

The same evening, one of Sandwich Isle fumigation tents was slashed overnight, allowing the gas inside to escape, the first in a series of similar incidents, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit in November 2015.

Alfredo Cabael, who worked for Miske for a dozen years carrying out a mixture of legitimate and criminal tasks, testified last week that he slashed Sandwich Isle tents at Miske’s direction. Cabael said he made “S” shape cuts in the tents because Miske told him they were harder to repair. He recalled Miske had laughed when Cabael reported he had slashed one of Sandwich Isle’s blue tents in Mililani.

Botha also reported he had seen a Kamaaina Termite truck parked in the cul-de-sac near his home.

He was asked: “How did you interpret that?”

Botha responded that he took it as an attempt to intimidate him.

“This has to stop”

Botha said he didn’t worry about the threat at first. But less than four months after the confrontation at Costco, he received a call that one of his fumigation tents on a residence on Mokapu Road was leaking gas.

“I went to see it and there was an approximately 8 by 8 foot piece cut out,” Botha said. It was a zero-lot line home, and the tear gas-like chemical was leaking into the neighbors’ daughters bedroom.

“When the tent was slashed, the Vikane gas leaked into the residence next door and two females had to go to the hospital after breathing the poison gas,” an FBI report noted.

Botha said he had “no doubt” that it was intentional. Strong wind can rip a tent, and sometimes burglars will open a seam and enter a residence. But the large hole cut in the tent was something very unusual.

Having tents slashed was “very unusual,” Botha said.

Botha said most incidents had not been reported to the police because he knew from prior experience there was little HPD could do when there were no witnesses.

Eventually, Botha said, about $70,000 of tents were damaged by slashing.

Botha sought advice from others in the local industry, both locally and at conferences, and from other sources, including some “tough guys,” he said. He concluded Miske was a legitimate tough guy, with his own unique way of handling problems.

There were rumors Miske had a team of guys who would beat people up, so Botha decided he didn’t want to get others involved.

A police officer friend advised that he call Miske directly and set up a meeting.

Botha then called and offered to meet Miske at a Starbucks in Pearl City, and he agreed. However, Botha said, he believed Miske would try to ambush him, and felt he needed to be able to defend himself.

So Botha did two things. First, he planned to meet Miske but immediately claim he was hungry and suggest they move to a nearby Anna Miller’s.

If Miske was setting up an ambush, quickly switching locations would disrupt the plan, Botha said.

But Botha also said he went to the meeting “prepared to defend myself.”

He acknowledged he carried a rifle or shotgun in his truck, and a concealed Sig 220 handgun with him. Both guns were registered, he testified, but acknowledged it wasn’t legal to carry a concealed weapon at that time.

During cross examination by Miske’s attorney, Michael Kennedy, Botha acknowledged had had written a message on a shell casing: “Mike Miske Slug for a Thug.” But, Botha said, he didn’t carry the shell with him and it “wasn’t chambered.”

Botha said he was direct with Miske, telling him, “This nonsense must stop!”

Botha said he then tried to explain what the consequences would be if Miske retaliated against his family or his business.

Botha said he told Miske: “I’ll kill you.”

After that meeting, Botha said there were no further problems.

Many others who were threatened after getting on the wrong side of Miske were neither so bold, nor so lucky.

Also see:

“This alleged assault was just business,” iLind.net, March 3, 2024

“Witnesses in Miske trial have described several assaults,” iLind.net, March 1, 2024

“Feds say phony documents built a well-known pest control company out of thin air,” Civil Beat, October 26, 2022