Hawaii man gets 121 months for trying to smuggle meth, fentanyl to Alaska

A Big Island man who tried to take his drugs back from airport security officers and then ran from the checkpoint was sentenced Nov. 6 to just over 10 years in federal prison.

Kevin James Hallum, 52, of Captain Cook, Hawaii, was trying to smuggle methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin from Hawaii to Alaska, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii.

It fell apart at Kona International Airport. On July 25, 2025, Hallum tried to pass through Transportation Security Administration screening with work boots packed in his carry-on bag. Inside the boots were socks, and inside the socks was "a substantial quantity" of meth, fentanyl, heroin and other drugs, according to evidence presented at trial.

TSA officers noticed something off about the bag and found the drugs. As they went through it, Hallum told them the boots were his, tried to take the drugs back and fled the checkpoint, prosecutors said. He was caught later and charged.

A jury convicted him July 2 after a four-day trial on charges of conspiring to distribute meth, fentanyl and heroin and possessing them with intent to distribute. At sentencing, U.S. District Judge Micah W. J. Smith found that Hallum had obstructed justice by giving false testimony at both his trial and his sentencing.

Smith sentenced him to 121 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case.

The release doesn't say where in Alaska the drugs were headed.

Sandy Snodgrass, director of AK Fentanyl Response, whose son died of fentanyl poisoning in 2021, told a legislative briefing in April that cartels target rural Alaska for the same reason "an egg costs so much there." An egg that costs about a dollar in Anchorage costs $10 in Chevak, she said, and illicit drugs are the same.

In October, a Kenai man got more than 14 years in federal prison for conspiring to traffic more than four kilograms of fentanyl into Alaska by mail.