Criminals Mailing Illegal Fireworks To Hawaiʻi Mostly Get Away With It

Federal agents find hundreds of pounds of illegal fireworks every year in mail headed for Hawaiʻi addresses, and packages are regularly seized and destroyed.

Yet the senders of those packages, and the intended recipients, are almost never held accountable for bringing explosives into the islands.

Out of more than 130 illicit fireworks seizures by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in the last six years, the agency logged only six arrests, according to enforcement data Civil Beat obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

And prosecutions almost never occur.

One person, a 29-year-old, was arrested in connection with the shipment of 1,500 pounds of fireworks from California to Honolulu and Waipahu, the records show. The case is now closed. Officials wouldn’t answer questions about the case, and Civil Beat was unable to find any evidence the person faced criminal charges.

Without the threat of consequences, people are sending undeclared explosive material through the mail to Hawaiʻi – on both commercial and cargo planes – on a regular basis, Department of Law Enforcement Director Mike Lambert said in an interview.

“I want to acknowledge that definitely when you have minimal enforcement, it does encourage that as a pathway,” he said. 

The vast majority of Hawaiʻi’s illegal fireworks inventory comes in on container ships, but mailed fireworks pose the frightening possibility of a midair explosion.

Asked to explain the lack of arrests and prosecutions for mailing fireworks, Hawaiʻi’s U.S. Postal Inspector Brian Shaughnessy declined to be interviewed. He said in a statement that U.S. postal Inspectors work diligently to identify and remove dangerous items such as fireworks from the mailstream.

“Our primary responsibility in fireworks investigations in which the U.S. Mail is being used is to keep mail safe,” he said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson did not respond to multiple interview requests. Civil Beat also contacted the last three U.S. Attorneys. Clare Connors and Flo Nakakuni did not respond. Kenji Price declined to comment.

It may be a matter of priorities. The federal law prohibiting the mailing of fireworks is only a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to one year in jail and fines of up to $100,000. Department of Justice policy dictates that prosecutors consider the seriousness of an offense when deciding whether to pursue charges. 

“At the federal level, they’re looking for kilos of fentanyl, firearms factories,” Lambert said. “It’s a huge issue in Hawaiʻi, but fireworks are not a national issue. Each U.S. attorney’s office gets priorities based on the president’s priorities.” 

Hawaiʻi has become inundated with illegal fireworks in recent years. The extravagant explosions delight some residents who appreciate the show, especially on holidays. But they have also drawn increasing criticism from those who feel they are a nuisance at best – with loud booms startling people and pets alike – and a serious public safety hazard at worst.

A New Year’s Eve fireworks explosion in Salt Lake that killed six people, including a 3-year-old, has inspired impassioned pleas this year for a crackdown by law enforcement, which has for years failed to enforce fireworks bans.

Explosives on flights are a major concern, said Hawaiʻi Rep. Scot Matayoshi, who passed legislation this year to boost enforcement of fireworks bans and increase penalties for lawbreakers.

“I’m extremely worried about that,” he said. “You’re putting a bomb in the middle of a bunch of flammable paper on an airplane. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

Pennsylvania Man Mailed 7,600 Pounds Of Fireworks  

For a while, John Allan Jr.’s fireworks business was lucrative.

The Pennsylvania dad in his 40s purchased fireworks from a wholesaler, took orders from Hawaiʻi residents on eBay and Instagram, and shipped package after package to the islands using the U.S. mail.

Over a two-year period, Allan sent 254 packages to the islands weighing more than 7,600 pounds, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service found. Customers paid him through PayPal, Venmo or cash sent to a Pennsylvania P.O. box.

From 2018 to 2022, Allan raked in at least $750,000, court records show.

But his enterprise came to an end after federal agents searched some of his packages and his Instagram account, according to a federal agent’s affidavit submitted in federal court. Then, Allan confessed.

He admitted to selling fireworks to Hawaiʻi customers for four years, and later pleaded guilty to mail and tax violations. 

“Allan explained fireworks are illegal to possess on the islands of Hawaiʻi, which is what made his reselling profitable,” the agent said.

Apparently, others have come to the same conclusion.

Since 2019, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has made dozens of seizures of fireworks from packages bound to Hawaiʻi neighborhoods, the data shows.

In 2024 alone, agents made 28 seizures. They captured and destroyed packages with as few as a single firework while other seizures weighed up to 102 pounds — presumably in multiple boxes because the USPS weight limit is 70 pounds.

Waipahu was the most common destination listed for the seized packages, representing about a third of cases for which location data was available. The former plantation town on Oʻahu is known for its explosive New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Addresses in Wahiawā and Honolulu were the second and third most popular destinations.  

Seizures of neighbor island packages were less frequent, but a few were bound for Kahului, Kīhei and Wailuku on Maui; Līhuʻe and ʻEleʻele on Kauaʻi; and Hilo and Kailua-Kona on Hawaiʻi island.

The data quantifies the seizures by both units of fireworks and pounds, making it hard to compare cases by size, and it doesn’t specify what kinds of fireworks were seized. However, the biggest seizure by weight appears to be the capture of 502 pounds of fireworks in November 2020 from a shipment bound for Honolulu.

Of the half-dozen arrests made since 2019, five cases are closed. Of those, four cases involved packages originating in California. Descriptions and dispositions of each case were redacted from the data. The Postal Inspection Service withheld all information about one case, which is listed as still pending.

To justify its redactions, the agency cited federal laws that allow the withholding of records that could violate a person’s privacy or reveal law enforcement techniques.

The only local mail-related fireworks prosecution Shaughnessy could think of was the case of Gilchrist Fernandez, an Oʻahu Community Correctional Center guard who was mailing fireworks to the jail. Fernandez has pleaded guilty to state charges and awaits sentencing.

Shaughnessy declined to discuss what prompts his agency to open a package but noted that doing so requires a warrant.

“For security reasons, we do not disclose our specific methods publicly,” he said, “but we act on information that is both data- and human-driven to aggressively interdict packages containing non-mailable matter, including aerial fireworks.”

As for criminal charges, Shaughnessy alluded to the responsibility of state law enforcement.

“We have historically relied on our state partners to follow through with conferring these cases for prosecution in state court,” he said. 

But the attorney general’s office and prosecutors in all four Hawaiʻi counties said the postal inspector had not referred any cases to them in the last several years.

Lambert said that state and local prosecutors couldn’t take fireworks cases from the federal government even if they wanted to. Federal law enforcement officers have different search and seizure standards than Hawaiʻi officers, Lambert said.

“If a federal investigator opens it under their fed authority, and that’s how you discover it, it would be inadmissible at state court,” he said. “So if the fed guys pop it, they basically turn it over to HPD to destroy it.” 

Legislation passed this year could give state law enforcement a bigger role in fireworks-related mail investigations. House Bill 1483 would make it a state crime to “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” send or receive fireworks through any air delivery method, including the U.S. mail. Violators could face felony charges.

That bill is waiting for the governor’s signature.

Allan was ultimately sentenced to probation, federal court records show. He declined through his attorney to comment for this story.

As far as Civil Beat can tell, his buyers in Hawaiʻi never faced any consequences, despite an apparent confession from at least one of them. Hawaiʻi postal inspectors interviewed an individual who mailed Allan $20,000 for up to 1,000 pounds of fireworks ordered via Instagram, according to a federal agent’s affidavit.

Asked for an explanation, Shaughnessy did not provide one.

Confiscation Is Punishment, State’s Top Cop Says

Investigating people who import fireworks to Hawaiʻi through the mail isn’t as simple as looking at the sender and recipient address written on the package, according to Lambert.

Illicit fireworks importers use fake return addresses, he said, and they often mail the packages to the neighbors of the intended recipient. The true recipient then can track the package, watch their neighbors’ deliveries and intercept the delivery before anyone notices.

It is possible for law enforcement to run a covert operation to catch all this activity, Lambert said, but that takes time and resources that are hard to justify to capture an unknown quantity of fireworks.

“If I spent $10,000 in covert ops to get a 20-lb. package of fireworks, you guys would run a story on that, right?” Lambert said. “That’s the type of resources it would take.”

Law enforcement has to focus its resources strategically, Lambert said. At the port, officials can get more bang for their buck.

“I’m not disregarding the impact of mail, but when you’re talking about 50 pounds or 20,000 pounds, I’m trying to put the money – the state’s money – to find the 20,000 pounds,” he said. 

As for mail, confiscation itself can be a punishment, Lambert said, and a deterrent.

“We confiscated it, we destroyed it, and the punishment is the loss of their product,” Lambert said. “So although there’s not a criminal prosecution, we are interrupting business.”

Matayoshi hopes this year’s fireworks legislation, if the governor signs it into law, will help. Lawmakers sought higher penalties for lawbreakers and budgeted money for sting operations.

The legislator’s hope is would-be fireworks dealers will be scared off by the idea that they might be mailing fireworks to an undercover cop.

“People need to become aware that it’s possible to get busted for these crimes,” Matayoshi said. “We’re fighting against years of thought that people can just get away with this with impunity.”