"Fraud can't happen here"

Leo Caires filed a whistleblower suit last week. In that suit, the former chief of staff to Maui Mayor Richard Bissen alleges that in March 2024 he found a $45,532.32 invoice in the County’s Office of Economic Development.

The invoice was dated August 16, 2023 — about one week after the Maui fires.

The company on the invoice was RTFEX Depot. The address listed was in Scottsdale, Arizona. Caires called the number on the invoice. An answering machine picked up. It did not say the company’s name. He called the Arizona Corporation Commission. It had no record of the company.

Caires was a former commercial banker. He suspected fraud. He asked Maui’s Corporation Counsel for advice, and they recommended a formal investigation.

During the investigation, Caires says he found that one of Bissen’s executive assistants was part of the deal. The assistant was Mayson “Pono” Asano. Asano said he picked up the equipment in the parking lot of the Kahului Target. He said he would delivere it to the grantee on Moloka‘i. But when Caires asked for receipts and bank records, Asano had none.

Caires also spoke with Cynthia Lallo. She supervised the mayor’s executive assistants at the time. Lallo said Asano had acted as an agent on other grants. That work had nothing to do with his job.

Caires believed Asano was breaking the terms of the grants. He believed it was fraud. A mayor’s office employee was defrauding the County of Maui.

When Caires gave the mayor an update, Bissen told him to back off. Bissen also told him to turn the investigation into an audit.

When Caires kept going, he was cut out of meetings, then demoted and finally fired. Lallo replaced him as chief of staff.