A warrant has been issued for the arrest of one of the owners of a company that imported fireworks to Hawaiʻi without a state license, according to the Attorney General’s Office. 

Josephine Quintanilla, a co-owner of Explicit Pyrotechnics, was charged on March 11 with allegedly importing fireworks into Hawaiʻi without a state license, a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

Last year, the Department of Law Enforcement’s Illegal Fireworks Task Force announced its biggest single seizure of 24 tons. In February, Civil Beat was the first to report that Waiʻanae-based Explicit Pyrotechnics was the importer of that shipment.

The Civil Beat investigation found that while Explicit Pyrotechnics had a federal license to bring professional-grade fireworks into Hawaiʻi, neither the company nor the two owners had a state license to possess, import or sell fireworks, as required by state law.

Quintanilla’s case is the third set of felony charges resulting from an operation by the fireworks task force, which includes federal, state and county law enforcement agencies. The men in the other two cases, Daniel C. Young and Wolfgang Clark, separately pleaded no contest to charges of illegal possession and sale of fireworks without a license after they were caught as part of undercover operations targeting people selling fireworks on social media.

“The judgments in these cases are a step in the right direction for holding distributors accountable,” Mike Lambert, director of the Department of Law Enforcement, said in a news release from the Attorney General’s office.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that a warrant has been issued for her arrest.