U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Litigation Release No. 17539 / May 30, 2002

   , Civil Action No. 98-1106 (RMU) (D.D.C. May 4, 1998).

   SEC Files Contempt Action Against Defendant Edward R. Showalter for
   Failure to Pay SEC Judgment of Over $750,000; SEC Also Obtained Asset
   Freeze, Travel Restriction, and Passport Surrender Order Against
   Showalter

   The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that on May 22,
   2002 the Honorable Ricardo M. Urbina, United States District Judge for
   the District of Columbia, entered an order to show cause (i) why
   defendant Showalter should not be held in contempt of court for not
   paying an outstanding judgment of over $750,000, entered against
   Showalter on May 15, 2001, and (ii) why Showalter should not provide a
   sworn accounting of his finances. A hearing on these issues is
   scheduled for June 3^rd. The Court also ordered a freeze of up to
   $750,000 of Showalter's assets including assets of a company under his
   control, International Financial Group dba IFG Goldstar Cement
   Company. In addition, the Court restricted Showalter's travel outside
   the U.S., and ordered him to surrender his passport to the Court
   immediately.

   Previously, in entering a default judgment, the Court ordered
   Showalter to pay $900,000 (including a $150,000 penalty) after the
   Court found that Showalter had orchestrated two fraudulent schemes to
   raise capital illegally. In the first scheme, Showalter's company
   materially overstated the value of the primary asset of a wholly-owned
   subsidiary, a portfolio of defaulted bank loans, in reports filed with
   the Commission and disseminated to the public. In the second scheme,
   Showalter's company fraudulently raised millions of dollars by issuing
   stock to nominee consultants pursuant to Form S-8 registration
   statements. Consequently, the Court's judgment also permanently
   enjoined Showalter from violating, among other things, the antifraud,
   registration, reporting, and internal control provisions of the
   federal securities laws, and barred him from serving as an officer or
   director of a public company. The Court also found that Showalter had
   "engaged in a pattern of repeated, willful violations of the court's
   orders," including failure "to appear for court-scheduled depositions
   and hearings," violations of the Court's order to provide discovery,
   and failure to pay court-ordered expenses to the SEC. See Lit. Rel.
   No. 17204.

   The SEC based its contempt action on new information showing that
   Showalter was now living and operating in California, and trying to
   raise money purportedly for a cement import business, IFG Goldstar