Medinah Minerals (fka MDHM)

[Churak]

perhaps this is why it sounds familiar...

Company News and Press Releases From Other Sources:

Lake Elsinore, Calif., Mining Executive Faces Security, Wire Fraud Charges

Aug 21, 2002 (The Press-Enterprise - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- A top executive of a Lake Elsinore-based mining company is facing a federal indictment alleging that he conspired to commit securities and wire fraud in a scheme to tried to bribe an undercover FBI agent in a scheme to artificially push up the company's stock price.
Named in the indictment Friday was Les Price, who is listed on corporate documents as chief executive officer of Medinah Minerals Inc., was named in the indictment Friday. The U.S. Department of Justice for the Southern District of Florida alleges that Price and a Pennsylvania-based broker conspired to commit securities and wire fraud.

Price could not be reached for comment. Lake Elsinore businessman Larry Regis Jr., chairman of Medinah Minerals, said he and the board were aware of the indictments but declined to comment. No one else associated with the company was named in the indictment.

Medinah Minerals is an exploration company with mining assets in Chile. Price is based in the company's office in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

According to the indictment, Price was approached late last year by undercover FBI agents who said they would drive up the cost of Medinah Minerals stock by buying stock at $1 a share, using money from a foreign-based mutual fund. The agents claimed the managers of the fund were corrupt and were willing to go along with an illicit stock deal.

At the time, the price of the firm's stock, which is traded over the counter, was about 6 cents a share.

Price allegedly was then going to sell about 5 million shares of Medinah Minerals at the artificially pumped-up price, and pay a 30 percent kickback to the broker.

Also indicted was Joseph Huard Jr., a securities broker who is one of the founders of Shamrock Partners Ltd., a brokerage firm based in Media, Pa.

The indictments were part of a two-year sting operation that saw more than 50 people charged with crimes last week.

Additionally, some of the people charged last week face companion civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, said John Mattimore, assistant regional director for the SEC in Miami.

Medinah Minerals stock was quoted Monday at 7 cents a share, up 1 cent.


By Jack Katzanek

To see more of The Press-Enterprise, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to

http://www.PE.com

(c) 2002, The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif. Distributed by Knight

Ridder/Tribune Business News.
-0-