The Hawaii Department of the Attorney General last week warned the public about a man falsely claiming to be the state’s chief technology officer, both at national conferences and on online platforms.
Toni Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Hawaii AG’s office, wrote in an email that someone attending the 2026 Bitcoin conference, a gathering of more than 30,000 attendees in Las Vegas last week, alerted the department that a man named Iqbal Khowaja was presenting himself as the “CTO of the State of Hawai’i.” (Scwartz declined to provide further details about the person who contacted the office, to “protect the integrity of the on-going review.”)
Hawaii does not have a statewide chief technology officer. The state’s technology leadership is represented by its chief information officer, Christine Sakuda, who heads the Office of Enterprise Technology Services.
After receiving this information, Schwartz said, the AG’s office sent Khowaja a cease and desist letter. The office declined to share a copy of the letter or any further details “beyond what has already been made public” in the office’s press release.
In a press release last week, Tom Alipio, chief of the state AG’s investigations division said the office was “alerted to this individual’s false claims and quickly took steps to verify the information and respond. When someone falsely presents themselves as a government official, it raises serious concerns about fraud and public deception.”
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