News Release

Vancouver – Four individuals, who helped carry out a stock price manipulation scheme, face various market bans and monetary penalties after they reached settlement agreements with the B.C. Securities Commission.

In 1997, Jacob Jackie Alter, of Vancouver; Richard Harris, of Costa Rica; Elizabeth Anne Moxon, of West Vancouver; and Charles Wiebe, of Abbotsford, participated in a stock manipulation scheme orchestrated by Michael Lee Mitton. (Mitton was later criminally convicted in December 2000 for six counts of fraud in relation to another $2.4-million swindle that he ran against investment dealers and a charity in B.C. and elsewhere.)

Between January 1997 and September 1997, the four -- some unwittingly -- helped Mitton manipulate the price of the shares of H&R Enterprises, Inc. H&R was a company whose shares traded on the NASD Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board in the United States. Mitton manipulated the share price of H&R so that it rose from about $2 US in August 1997 to a peak of $6.75 US on Sept. 25, 1997. Mitton and others pocketed about $1.8-million Cdn from this scheme.

For their part in the scheme, the four have each admitted and agreed to the following:
· Alter, a former registrant, breached the Securities Act when he allowed H&R shares to be distributed without a prospectus and he failed to learn the essential facts about his clients. He is banned for six years from trading in the securities market, being a director or an officer of an issuer (unless he is the sole shareholder) and engaging in investor relations activities.
· Harris was a principal of Harris McLean Financial Group Ltd., a now defunct investment firm that operated out of the Cayman Islands. He breached the Act by participating in transactions that he knew or ought to have known contributed to a misleading appearance of trading activity or artificial price for the shares of H&R. He also distributed shares without being registered to do so. Harris acted contrary to the public interest when, knowing that Mitton was under a cease-trade order, he allowed Mitton to trade through his company and acted as a nominee for Mitton. Harris is permanently banned from trading in the securities markets, acting as a director or officer of any issuer and from engaging in investor relations activities.
· Moxon was an employee of H&R or Capital Hill Ventures Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of H&R. She admitted to breaching the Act by participating in transactions that she ought to have known contributed to a misleading appearance of trading activity or artificial price for the shares of H&R. She also traded in H&R shares she received from treasury without a prospectus or exemption to do so. By acting as a nominee for Mitton, she acted contrary to the public interest. She will pay $5,000, which represents a portion of the costs of the investigation, and for five years is banned from trading in securities, cannot be a director or officer of any issuer and cannot engage in investor relations activities.
· Wiebe acted as an officer and de facto director of H&R and a nominee of Mitton’s by maintaining brokerage accounts in his name and trading on instructions from Mitton. Wiebe admitted that he breached the Act by participating in transactions that he knew or ought to have known contributed to a misleading appearance of trading activity or artificial price for the shares of H&R. He also traded in shares of H&R without a prospectus or an exemption to do so. By acting as a nominee for Mitton, he acted contrary to the public interest. Wiebe will pay $12,500, of which $2,500 represents investigative costs, and for 10 years is banned from trading in the securities market, cannot be a director or officer of any issuer (except for family companies) and cannot engage in investor relations.

The B.C. Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities and exchange contracts within the province. Copies of the settlement agreements can be viewed in the documents database of the commission’s website www.bcsc.bc.ca or by contacting Andrew Poon, Media Relations, 604-899-6880.