Save the World Air? Its stock is up in air for now
Don Bauder
July 21, 2000
From an investment perspective, you'll have to wait until at least Aug. 2 to Save the World Air.
Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily suspended Bulletin Board trading in the stock of a company by that name (symbol: ZERO) until Aug. 2.
The SEC is taking the move "because of questions that have been raised about the accuracy and adequacy of publicly disseminated information" regarding the Australia-based company, which plans to have its operational office in San Diego.
As my July 12 column pointed out, Save the World Air claims it owns the worldwide rights to a device that virtually eliminates the emission of dangerous polluting carbon monoxide exhaust gases from automobile engines.
And it would improve fuel economy up to 42 percent in the bargain. Hmmmm. Or maybe I should say Urrrp.
Those are wild claims -- just the kind that titillate the day traders and momentum-gambling groupies. As the company churned out news releases, the stock zoomed from a dime a share in early December to $12 on Aug. 6.
Then, as the company got skeptical reports, such as in this column, the stock backed down to $4.87, the level at the halt. But it's still up a bundle.
What's not so well-known is that Save the World Air has a companion company Down Under named Save the World Technologies. It wants to get listed as a stock, too. This company claims it has exclusive rights to a technology that will make a tree grow to 35 feet in one year.
Both companies are headed by Jeffrey Muller, a former Aussie race car driver, and both have the same New York address.
"Save the World Technologies is a different company," says Bill Blackwelder, who will head the local office of Save the World Air. But the technology is equally wondrous, he says: "Trees grow faster. They are genetically enhanced," he enthuses, although he doesn't work for that company.
Right now, Save the World Air is operating out of an apartment in La Jolla. Before too long, it will have an office where 15 people will handle U.S. sales and administration.
"The SEC's investigation will put to rest once and for all whether this (Save the World Air) is legitimate," Blackwelder says. "We were only three blocks away (in New York) when we did a live demonstration. The SEC could have walked three blocks if it had wanted to." Once the SEC sees how the device works, "the stock will be back trading where it was at."
The company will be selling licenses from $5,000 to $10 million. The former will be for small shops, the latter figure would be a master license for an entire country, Blackwelder says.
About time
John A. Field III, a former director of enforcement for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, this week was sentenced to two years in prison for becoming a co-conspirator with fraudulent telemarketing scamsters of the kind he had once investigated and prosecuted.
Justice moves slowly indeed. Field's story first broke in this column back in April of 1992. At that time, he was an attorney for defendants in the CFTC's case against Noble Metals International and Moorgate Ltd., two boiler rooms with strong San Diego ties.
Las Vegas-based Moorgate had been founded by Terry R. Ziegler, who went to jail after helping former prominent San Diegan Richard T. Silberman launder $300,000 they believed was drug money. They both got caught in an FBI sting. My lead for that 1992 column was, "The lawyer's route to the lush green fields is to go to work for a government agency, learn the ropes, resign and then represent wealthy people being pursued by that agency. But has lawyer John A. Field III gone too far afield?"
A full eight years later, it finally appears that he had indeed gone too far. Field had also been a U.S. attorney before he switched allegiances. |
