Who wouldn't love grand tales of fame, fortune, adventure, and shenanigans? Hondo's *probably* seen them all at one point or another.
Long ago, when the galaxy was in turmoil with the onset of the Clone War, Hondo Ohnaka made his mark by having a criminal empire. He and his band of weequay brigands ruled the outer rim with a sizable fleet of raiders, each one preying on supply lines to turn for a hefty profit. For a while he ruled his small sector uncontested until war came to his doorstep. During his escapades he would mostly serve himself first, and his empire second, as one would expect from a pirate. But, his true loyalties were neutral, while slightly favoring the Jedi or the rebels later on.
His first major encounter actually saw to the capture of the Confederacy's prime leader, Count Dooku, and later jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. He had hoped that turning in all three to their proper governments would turn in for a high profit. But in the end he would be left outwitted, without the profit he wanted, and would have made an enemy of Dooku. A mistake that would prove costly before the war's end.
His escapades did not stop there however. He needed to recover from his losses, and in doing so he encountered a band of farmers with a most precious crop. Valuable to the right people, and lucrative for him. At first he would terrorize the local farmer populace into giving him a major portion of the crop, and would leave barely enough for the farmers to survive on. The farmers eventually decided they had enough of his treatment, and hired a gang of mercenaries to stop his reign. The mercenaries agreed for a small profit, and would later end up teaming up with Kenobi and Skywalker to not only protect the farm, but to teach these timid locals how to fight.
In a twist of fate, Hondo actually ended up agreeing to deliver a sizable shipment of high yield rocket launchers to the occupation-resistance of Onderon, for a profit of course. While his action might have seemed noble, he didn't wish to get caught up in the rebellion and fled during the battle.
The full force of the war would come to his doorstep when the Confederacy landed its troops to have Hondo and his pirate gangs to answer for their treachery. The droid army landed, incarcerated him and his gang, and dismantled their weapons, armors, and even ships in order to pay for capturing Dooku. This later forced him to flee from his home with a band of Jedi younglings he had recently attacked, including Ahsoka Tano.