EX-DEA AGENT CONVICTED OF STEALING $178,000

A former official of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San
Francisco was convicted this week of stealing $178,000 from a drug-buying
fund the agency used in its undercover investigations.

Clifford Shibata, a veteran DEA agent and supervisor who has worked for 25
years at the federal narcotics agency, is scheduled to appear in court for
sentencing September 4.

Shibata was indicted by a federal grand jury last year on charges of mail
fraud, theft from the government and making false statements.

According to investigators, while working as a DEA group supervisor in San
Francisco from 1994 to 1996, Shibata made 137 cash withdrawals from an
agency fund used to pay for undercover drug purchases and informants.

Although many of the withdrawals were for amounts of only a few hundred
dollars, some involved several thousand dollars.

Shibata forged the signatures of other DEA personnel and police officers on
forms he used to withdraw the money, and apparently returned some of the
cash to the agency with an anonymous letter that was intended to cast
suspicion on a co-worker.

During Shibata's three-week trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco,
prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department's Profession Integrity Section
in Washington, D.C., introduced scores of documents related to the
transactions and put on numerous witnesses who testified that they did not
sign the documents Shibata used to obtain the money.

Neither Shibata nor his attorney, Stuart Hanlon, could be reached for
comment yesterday.