Hawai‘i Island police say nearly one kilogram of fentanyl seized by their vice division could have caused 500,000 fatal overdoses, enough to affect every man, woman and child on Ni‘ihau, Kaua‘i, Maui, Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i and Hawai‘i Island, plus the O‘ahu communities of Kapolei, ‘Ewa Beach and Royal Kunia.
The seizure is part of hundreds of pounds of drugs, dozens of firearms and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash recovered since two vice divisions merged earlier this year.
In February 2025, the Hawai‘i Police Department combined its East and West Hawai‘i vice units into a single islandwide division under Capt. Edwin Buyten, a veteran with 24 years of law enforcement experience focused on narcotics investigations. Buyten told Aloha State Daily the merger “force multiplied” the department’s ability to respond to drug activity across the island.
Due to officer safety, Buyten declined to provide an exact number of vice officers but said the division is expected to remain at roughly 20 to 30 officers.
The department did not provide a specific annual budget for vice, but ASD was told that salaries for vice officers come from Hawai‘i County’s budget, supplemented by federal funds that fluctuate from year to year, with funding notably impacted by the 43-day federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history.
Overall, Hawai‘i County allocated $198.8 million for police protection in its adopted fiscal year 2025–26 operating budget, according to County budget documents (Ordinance 25‑45).
Since the merger, vice officers confiscated:
- 75.3 pounds of methamphetamine
- 20.5 pounds of cocaine
- 5.45 pounds of crack cocaine, heroin and ketamine
- Nearly 2 pounds of illicit fentanyl and more than 550 fentanyl pills
- Over 1,000 pounds of dried marijuana, including concentrate pills, plants, dabs, oils and edibles
- 4.8 pounds of other illegal narcotics, including psilocybin, MDMA and LSD
- 789 items of drug paraphernalia
Buyten said most shipments come from California, with some from Nevada and the Pacific Northwest.
“Mexico is definitely our biggest supplier of illegal narcotics to the state of Hawai‘i,” he told ASD. “The majority of the methamphetamine was California-based, some of the fentanyl came up from the Pacific Northwest.”
He added that trafficking routes shift as policies change.
“With the current administration shutting down the border, some of that fentanyl was redirected other ways, maybe up and around,” Buyten said.
Drugs sometimes arrive hidden in vehicles or shipped through parcel companies. Buyten said no particular island consistently receives shipments first; it depends on the traffickers.
Vice officers also recovered 73 firearms, more than 1,800 rounds of ammunition, explosives and over $424,000 in cash and other assets linked to drug trafficking.
“A certain percentage of the guns, we took them off wanted fugitives. All 73 came from felony-level cases,” Buyten told ASD.
Cash seizures are handled by the prosecuting attorney and then the attorney general’s office. Buyten said most people do not contest cash tied to drugs, unlike vehicles, which are sometimes disputed.
From February through December 2025, vice investigations led to 297 arrests for 1,146 offenses and courts issued 427 warrants and 14 parole-revocation warrants.
Buyten said the merger allows the division to operate more efficiently and respond quickly to drug activity anywhere on Hawai‘i Island.
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