By Markus K. Binder
Having recently gained international attention after allegations of Russian use in Ukraine, chloropicrin attacks remain a subject of interest in a wider criminal court case in Hawaii, USA. Markus K. Binder investigates.
The pre-World War I riot control agent (RCA) chloropicrin has been garnering increased attention in 2024 due to allegations that Russian forces are illegally deploying it against defenders during their ongoing invasion of Ukraine. But the agent has also been employed by criminals for their own nefarious purposes.
On two consecutive nights in March 2017, a criminal gang used chloropicrin to attack two crowded nightclubs in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii, potentially endangering the lives of hundreds of innocent people in pursuit of profit.
In the early morning hours of March 5, 2017, an acrid odor began to spread through a crowded nightclub in Honolulu. Within minutes patrons were fleeing for the exits coughing, vomiting, and eyes streaming. An investigation of the evacuated Ginza nightclub by Honolulu Fire Department personnel soon revealed that patrons had been affected by chloropicrin.
Although it was historically used as an RCA, and presently is used as a deterrent to entry for homes undergoing fumigation, chloropicrin is a toxic gas as dangerous as chlorine, especially in confined spaces. Employed as an early chemical weapon in WWI, its potential lethality was a major factor in the agent being supplanted as an RCA.
The attack was carried out on the orders of Mike Miske, a Hawaiian businessman whom U.S. prosecutors allege is the kingpin of an extensive network of organized criminal activities that operated in the state of Hawaii for over two decades. A multi-year FBI investigation resulted in charges of racketeering, murder, assault, robbery, arson, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, witness tampering, and use of chemical weapons, for over a dozen members of the so-called Miske Enterprise. Amongst other activities, Miske and his underlings are alleged to have traded in illegal fireworks, robbed drug dealers and jewelry stores, intimidated car dealers and nightclub owners, and engaged in corruption of public officials.
After four years of pre-trial activity, the jury trial began on January 22, 2024, with the prosecution case finally resting on June 4, 2024, after calling hundreds of witnesses and presenting several thousand exhibits. As of the time of writing in June 2024, it is unknown how long the defense will take to present its case, but it is reasonable to anticipate several additional months of testimony before jury deliberations begin.
However, since the initial charges were brought, the case has been somewhat simplified by all the other defendants taking plea agreements whereby they accept conviction for a reduced set of crimes in return for providing detailed testimony on the activities of the Miske Enterprise. It is through these plea agreements and associated in-court testimony that we can gain a clearer view of the Miske Enterprise’s determination to use chemical agents to attack rivals.
The Attack
At some point during the day of March 4, 2017, Jacob Smith, an associate of Michael Miske, reached out to Ashlin Akau, another Miske Enterprise associate. Ms. Akau was offered $1,500 to participate in an attack on the Ginza nightclub in downtown Honolulu later that night. Amongst other illegal activities, Akau had previously taken part in a series of robberies of drug dealers and clearly was not expected to balk at this proposition. After agreeing to take part, Smith met her and then drove her to the home of John Stancil in the Waimanalo neighborhood, arriving at approximately 9.30pm.
In the 10-15 minutes that Smith met with Stancil, he received two bottles of chloropicrin along with instructions on how best to make use of it in the nightclubs. In providing this guidance Stancil was able to draw on both his training with the agent as part of his role at the Miske-owned Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control (KPC), but, more importantly, also his own prior experience mounting attacks of this type in 2015.
Gathering up the bottles, Smith rejoined Akau and drove 30–45 minutes into Honolulu where they parked close to the Ginza nightclub. Then, in accordance with instructions that they mount their attack after midnight when the club would be crowded, they waited in the car for three hours. Finally, at approximately 1.30am Akau entered the club carrying a single bottle of chloropicrin which she decanted onto the dancefloor, resulting in choking fumes that saw club-goers and staff rapidly evacuating the venue.
The previous night a similar release occurred at the District nightclub in downtown Honolulu, this time perpetrated by Smith and a different operative, Kaulana Freitas, a long-term Miske Enterprise enforcer. This attack used a slightly different mode of delivery with Freitas pouring the agent into one of the club’s trashcans rather than directly onto the floor.
The Motive
The March 2017 attacks were not the first instance of chloropicrin use in Hawaiian nightclubs. In late 2015 there were two agent releases in Chinatown nightclubs, one each at the Pearl Ultra Lounge and the SoHo nightclub, and another at the Addiction nightclub in Waikiki, all of which injured patrons and staff.
The apparent motivation for these attacks was a desire to drive business away from the targeted venues and towards a Miske-owned nightclub, initially known as M and subsequently rebranded as Encore.
The decision to use the inherently dangerous chloropicrin rather than a more innocuous agent appears to have been driven by convenience. Miske’s half-brother, Stancil, was employed by KPC which stocked and used chloropicrin in the normal course of its fumigation business, and repeatedly diverted bottles of agent from the KPC stockpile for attacks.
Use of CBRN for Criminal Purposes
Although CBRN terrorism probably garners more attention, it is likely that criminal uses of agents have actually inflicted more harm. Chemical agents are frequently used for simple poisoning, typically of spouses or for family annihilation, but also for targeting business or romantic rivals. A subset of these events involves the deliberate targeting of random individuals to deceptively conceal a specific crime.
The use of RCAs in crowded public spaces typically involves a variant of pepper spray. Most uses are either accidental, part of a personal dispute, or sometimes by security personnel. Although the agent itself may be non-lethal, it is all too easy for agent deployment to result in serious injuries or even deaths through falls or crowd crushes as people flee from the agent’s effects.
Globally, CBRN use for criminal profit as in the Hawaiian attacks is not uncommon. The poisoning of food ingredients to damage rival restaurants has resulted in numerous deaths.
Lessons Learned
These incidents highlight several common features of criminal use of CBRN agents along with some key differences from terrorist events that may significantly impact the capacity of authorities to respond effectively, or more importantly, to prevent attacks occurring.
Firstly, there is the preference for using agents that are already in their possession rather than seeking to produce something else, which significantly reduces the chance that agent acquisition will be detected prior to plot execution. In this regard it is worth noting that KPC, like all fumigation companies, had access to significant quantities of the lethal, and odorless, Vikane gas fumigant. This reliance on locally obtained materials can create significantly greater risk for first responders as it is difficult or impossible to predict threat agents.
Another feature of criminal use of CBRN agents is that the actor deploying the agent may not fully appreciate the agent’s inherent dangers. Both Akau and Freitas have claimed to believe the attack simply involved “pepper spray” or “some kind of Mace”. In 2009 an Arizona man created and used improvised chlorine devices to attack a homeowner with whom he had a dispute; he created a dense chlorine cloud that extended over a Phoenix neighborhood sickening responders and forcing evacuations.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, there is the effective invisibility of criminal actors to the various tools that have been developed to identify and interdict international terrorist operatives, particularly through interception of their communications. Criminal plots frequently have very short cycle times from inception to execution and are unlikely to involve foreign controllers such as those that exposed the 2017 Sydney hydrogen-sulfide plot.
Mr. Markus Binder is a Senior Researcher with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism’s (START) Unconventional Weapons and Technologies (UWT) division. His primary area of research is Violent Non-State Actor (VNSA) pursuit and use of CB agents. In this capacity he conducts research into the acquisition and use of CBRN agents or materials by VNSAs including their motivations. Mr. Binder also manages two START databases recording ideologically motivated VNSA CBRN events and perpetrators. He is taking an increasing interest in the use of CBRN agents or materials by criminal actors.
