Hawaii
Cartels bringing meth, fentanyl into Hawaii: Report
(NewsNation) — Mexican drug cartels are expanding their reach to Hawaii, flooding the islands with methamphetamine and fentanyl, according to recent reports.
The remote location and limited law enforcement resources make Hawaii an attractive target for powerful cartels like Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Drugs are smuggled through various routes, including air passengers’ luggage, mailed packages and body carriers flying into Honolulu.
The lack of competition allows cartels to charge higher prices. An oxycodone pill selling for $2 in Los Angeles can fetch $16 or more in Hawaii.
This influx has contributed to a surge in fentanyl overdose deaths. Hawaii ranked seventh nationally with a 27% increase in fentanyl-related deaths in 2023, according to Families Against Fentanyl.
Authorities are responding to the crisis. Dennis Francis Kaleohano Kelly of Tucson, Arizona, was recently sentenced to 14 years in prison for distributing fentanyl and methamphetamine to Hawaii and New Mexico.
He had been arrested in 2021 after receiving a shipment of 10,000 fentanyl pills from a drug courier.
Honolulu has mandated that bars, nightclubs and restaurants carry the anti-overdose medication Narcan. The state is also implementing a five-year plan to promote comprehensive mental health and drug addiction treatments.
Hawaii
Hawaii Is Looking For Its Next Supreme Court Justice
Gov. Josh Green is likely to appoint a new Hawaii Supreme Court chief justice next year, his third pick for the five-member court.
On Friday the Judicial Selection Commission posted a vacancy for the position, currently held by Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald. By law, judges and justice in Hawaii are mandated to retire at age 70, an age Recktenwald will reach in 2025.
Applicants must be residents and citizens of Hawaii and licensed to practice law here for not less than 10 years preceding their nomination.
The term of office of the CJ, as the position is known in shorthand, is 10 years. The annual salary is $248,124.
The Judicial Selection Commission will publish the list of all applicants to its website, and the public will be invited to provide comments. The commission will then forward not less than four names and not more than six names to the governor for his consideration.
A justice’s nomination is then subject to confirmation by the state Senate.
A year ago at this time the Senate confirmed Lisa Ginoza and Vlad Devens to serve on the court.
Recktenwald was named CJ in 2010, after Gov. Linda Lingle’s nomination of Appeals Court Judge Katherine Leonard was rejected by the Senate for lacking leadership and management experience.
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Hawaii
Hannah Kobayashi’s last known movements as her family takes the search into their own hands
The search for missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi continued on Friday as her distraught family scoured Los Angeles for clues that could lead to her being found.
Kobayashi, 30, vanished after she missed a connecting flight between her home in Maui and New York where she was due to visit an aunt.
The missing woman landed in Los Angeles and was seen leaving LAX Airport and heading downtown on November 8.
Her family say they received cryptic messages from her before she stopped contacting them altogether – behavior they describe as highly unusual.
The family are frustrated with the pace of the official police investigation.
They say the LAPD didn’t contact them for 10 days after they initially reported her missing, and that they are the ones having to drive the search.
Their desperation has driven them to Hollywood mediums and internet web sleuth groups.
Last night, the family passed out flyers at a L.A. Lakers Game.
November 8
Now, Hannah’s sister Sydni is sharing a list of every sighting they have on record.
Kobayashi landed at LAX airport at 9:53pm and was seen on airport surveillance footage disembarking the aircraft.
She was due to take a connecting flight at 11pm, however she never made it.
Missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi’s sister has shared details of every last known sighting as her family continue their agonizing search
She called her aunt Geordan Montalvo to explain she had missed the connection and promised to meet her in New York.
She is then believed to have stayed the night at the airport before being spotted at various locations across LA.
November 9
Kobayashi was spotted at The Grove shopping mall between midday and 3pm.
She spent a considerable amount of time at Taschen Books, where she stopped to charge her phone.
At 2:43 she snapped a picture and sent it to her aunt, before returning to the airport where she is believed to have spent the night.
From there, she once again called Montalvo to tell her she was still trying to get to New York.
November 10
On Sunday, two days after she landed, Kobayashi went back to The Grove.
She appeared in the background of a video outside a Nike event featuring LeBron James at 3:30pm
Kobayashi also shared a post on her Instagram from the event with an eye emoji as the caption.
She was next spotted talking to a ticketing agent at LAX at around 5pm.
Kobayashi, 30, vanished during a layover in Los Angeles while traveling from her home in Maui to New York and was spotted getting off her flight at LAX
In a YouTube video, Hannah was seen in the background at an event in The Grove bookstore for Lakers player Lebron James
Her final post was shared on November 11. It is understood she was attending an event in Los Angeles at the time
A missing-persons report was filed by her family the same day amid what they described as uncharacteristic correspondence from Kobayashi.
One of the messages reportedly said: ‘Deep Hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds, & have had me on a mind f**k since Friday.’
Kobayashi’s mother, Brandi Yee, also reported sending her a text message asking if she made it to New York.
She responded simply: ‘Not yet.’ Another early-morning text mentioned how she was in the midst of a ‘spiritual awakening.’
On a missing-persons poster sent out immediately after, police wrote: ‘Prior to going missing, [Kobayashi] sent a message on November 10, mentioning feeling scared, and that someone might be trying to steal her money and identity. She hasn’t been hard from since.’
November 11
The next day, Kobayashi was spotted boarding an LAX Metro C line at Aviation/Century Station.
She got on board at 9:02pm, before transferring to a different train at the Rosa Parks Station.
Sydni said that it has been confirmed her sister was accompanied by someone for the duration of the journey.
Kobayashi made several trips to The Grove shopping mall, including to this book store the say after she landed
The missing woman’s family have taken matters into their own hands and have been handing out flyers in the area where Kobayashi was last seen
Kobayashi was finally seen leaving the Metro Pico Station with the unidentified person at 10:03pm.
Latest update
As of Thursday, the LAPD was yet to declare that Kobayashi has been abducted.
The investigation is still being treated as a missing-persons case, a spokesperson confirmed.
DailyMail.com revealed yesterday that detectives waited ten days before contacting the family for an interview.
Sydni also slammed the lack of action and revealed her relatives were appealing to psychic mediums for help.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, her aunt Larie Pidgeon said they are now fearing the worst.
‘Our mind is now going to, you know, abduction and, I hate to say the word, but, you know, trafficked,’ she said.
They held a rally before the Lakers game Thursday afternoon, just a block from the station where Kobayashi was last seen
Kobayashi was last seen in the company of an unidentified person but has not been declared as abducted by police
‘We’re doing the best that we can, but the family at this point is having to come to the reality that those things could be a possibility.’
The LAPD, meanwhile, is still spearheading the probe, but is now being aided by the FBI, field office agents in the city told KHON Honolulu Wednesday.
Statements given to the station by Pidgeon appeared to indicate Kobayashi is still with the person in the footage, whom has yet to be physically described.
‘She’s not alone, she’s with an unidentified person,’ said Pidgeon. ‘And she also got off and at a, at a station that is,’ she continued, before trailing off.
‘It’s not good and it terrified us, it brought her father to tears,’ she concluded.
She and others attended held a rally to pass out fliers before the Lakers game Thursday afternoon, just a block from the station where Kobayashi was last seen.
Prior to her disappearance, a friend of Kobayashi’s said she received bizarre messages talking about being scammed.
‘I got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds. For someone I thought I loved,’ the messages read.
They were seen at Metro Pico Station on November 11, before Kobayashi’s phone was switched off
Kobayashi, a photographer, is a resident of Haiku in Maui. She had been on her way to New York to photograph a DJ when she suddenly vanished
The family also noted that the young artist’s phone has been off since November 11.
‘She texted her that she was scared and that she couldn’t come back home or something. It was just really weird texts,’ Sydni said.
She added that the messages ‘did not sound like her’ and wonders if it was Hannah who sent them.
Kobayashi was on the same flight as her ex-boyfriend as the two had booked the trip before breaking up.
However, they did not sit together during the journey and he has since been aiding police with the search.
Hawaii
Family of Hawaii photographer Hannah Kobayashi, who vanished on ‘bucket list’ NYC trip, didn’t hear from detectives for 10 days
The family of Hannah Kobayashi — the Hawaiian photographer who vanished while heading on a “bucket list” vacation to New York — say they did not hear from detectives for 10 days, and only after holding a rally demanding action.
Kobayashi missed a connecting flight to New York and was left stranded in Los Angeles after leaving the confines of LAX on Nov. 8, with her family last hearing from her three days later when she sent a series of alarming text messages.
The 30-year-old’s family filed a missing persons report the next day — but say they hadn’t heard anything from officials until they held a rally in the streets of LA on Thursday.
“As of today the police have reached out to family members who last spoke with Hannah,” Kobayashi’s aunt Larie Pidgeon told the Daily Mail during the gathering. “We want them to take it a bit more seriously.
“We think they realize we’re not going away and we’re going to be really loud. We’re going to do something until they do something,” she added. “I think now they are beginning the process of what we began six days ago.”
The Thursday rally was held in downtown LA, a block from Kobayashi’s last known location, the outlet reported.
Pidgeon said the family wasn’t giving up their search for Kobayashi.
Her father shared the same sentiment after his daughter went on a trip that was a “bucket list dream that became reality.”
“We will do everything we can until we have found her,” Ryan Kobayashi told the outlet. “We just need to get the word out there about her.”
“She’s a wonderful person who brings joy to so many people,” he added
Kobayashi, of Haiku, flew from Maui to Los Angeles on Nov. 8, and was meant to make a connecting flight to New York, where she would be staying with another aunt.
Surveillance footage shows her arriving in LA, but she missed her connecting flight 42 minutes later.
After missing her flight, Kobyashi sent odd texts to her family and friends before she vanished, including messaging a friend that she “got tricked into pretty much giving away all my funds.”
In another message, she claimed she was supposedly fooled by “someone I thought I loved.”
“Deep Hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds, & have had me on a mind f–k since Friday,” another message read.
Family previously said the texts supposedly from Kobayashi are not like her.
Other footage showed Kobayashi at the Grove shopping center in the Fairfax District of LA on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, as well as video of her returning to LAX, but not getting on a flight on Nov. 11 before she was seen near the metro station, USA Today reported.
Her phone has been off since Nov. 11, the family previously said.
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