The Miske Files: Accused Murderer, Crime Boss And … Used Car Dealer? 0 Alleged kingpin Michael Miske owned a business that bought used cars at auction, providing income, a way to launder drug money and rewards for criminal associates, prosecutors say.
Former Honolulu business owner and alleged racketeering kingpin, Michael J. Miske Jr., owned a company that bought hundreds of cars at a wholesale dealers-only auction over a period of several years, allegedly using threats and intimidation to discourage rival bidders and buy cars at rock-bottom prices.
The company, Hawaii Partners LLC, was licensed as a used car dealer and registered to do business at the same Queen Street address in Kakaako that served as headquarters for Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control Inc., perhaps the largest and best known of Hawaii termite treatment firms, and the most widely recognized of Miske’s many businesses.
Kamaaina Termite is alleged to have been a central part of the “Miske Enterprise,” the name prosecutors use for the criminal organization allegedly controlled and directed by Miske from the late 1990s until his indictment and arrest in July 2020.
Kamaaina Termite “served as headquarters for the planning of criminal activities, the laundering of illicit proceeds, and the fraudulent ‘employment’ of individuals whose ‘work’ consisted of engaging in acts of violence or fraud on behalf of the Miske Enterprise,” according to the indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in June 2020.
