Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Friday August 13, 1999

At the same time, the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan said it arrested Alfred Flores, a convicted felon who headed a subsidiary of the OTC Bulletin Board company sued, Uniprime Capital Acceptance Inc. (OTC BB:UPCA - news). Flores, 45, was the president of New Technologies & Concepts Inc., which he founded in May 1999 with the assistance of Uniprime, the 70 percent owner of the subsidiary.

The SEC said Uniprime, whose primary business has been acquiring and financing retail car dealerships, issued three fake press releases heralding New Technologies' supposed miracle cure.

The SEC halted trading in Uniprime shares July 21 when it questioned Uniprime's early HIV claims and could not get a reply. Since Aug. 4, when the halt expired, some 800,000 Uniprime shares have traded in the secondary market, it said, and Uniprime has raised nearly $500,000 in private placements.

A receptionist who answered the telephone at Uniprime said its executives were in meetings and were not available to respond to calls.

The U.S. Attorney's office said Flores had an extensive criminal record, including a 1984 conviction for conspiracy to commit financially-motivated murder, for which he had served nine years.

According to the SEC, Uniprime issued a press release June 16 claiming that Flores was an honors graduate of the University of Madrid, a researcher in immunology at his own laboratory in Lisbon, Portugal, and had tested the anti-HIV "Plasma Plus" on patients in Spain.

The tests resulted in "complete reversal from the immune system of the HIV infection" of the patients, the release said. It also claimed that the patients remained HIV-free for 18 months.

The price of Uniprime shares rose from $0.625 to $1 per share the next day. Press releases issued July 19 and 21 offered purported patient and doctor testimonials and alleged Spanish government verification of Flores' research. These boosted Uniprime shares to an intraday high of $7.94 and prompted Bloomberg Business News to publish an interview with Flores.

In fact, according to the SEC and the U.S. Attorney, Flores never attended the University of Madrid, had no official recognition from the Spanish government and the patients and doctors named had never heard of him.

Prosecutors and investigators said Flores was in jail in Colorado on the murder conspiracy charge at the time he supposedly was conducting his research. The SEC said it was freezing the company's assets and seeking a permanent injunction against it. If convicted, Flores would face a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of $1 million.
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