BRIEFCASE DISNEY INTERNET SIGNS ALLTEL DEAL.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Walt Disney Internet Group has signed a deal with Alltel to add Disney content to Alltel wireless phones, the companies announced Wednesday.

Similar to deals Disney Internet Group has with AT&T and Sprint, the service offers games based on Disney's properties and ESPN programming and headlines from ABCNews.com, ESPN.com and FamilyFun.com. Disney will also add ring tones and graphics later this year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

OCP will relocate to Woodland Hills

WOODLAND HILLS - Optical Communication Products Inc. announced on Wednesday the relocation of its corporate headquarters to Woodland Hills from Chatsworth.

``The move is a part of our strategic plan to contain costs,'' said Chief Financial Officer Susie Nemeti.

OCP, which manufactures fiber-optic subsystems and modules for metropolitan, local and storage area networks, has owned the Woodland Hills facility since June 2001 and will occupy two-thirds of its 145,720 square feet of space. The remaining one-third will continue to be leased to commercial tenants.

OCP intends to lease or sell its Chatsworth facility, Nemeti said.

Countrywide joins with home builder

CALABASAS - Countrywide Home Loans Inc. and American Premiere Homes on Wednesday said they have created APH Mortgage, an operating division of Countrywide Mortgage Ventures LLC.

The joint venture is intended to provide home buyers in Lancaster and North Las Vegas with a wide variety of home-financing programs.

APH Mortgage will offer competitive loan products, interest rates and services including zero-down-payment loans and a variety of fixed- and adjustable-rate options.

Romanians arrest Web virus suspect

Police in Romania on Wednesday arrested a 24-year-old former student in connection with a computer-crippling Internet worm, according to a computer security company that aided police.

The company, Bucharest-based BitDefender, identified the student as Dan Dumitru Ciobanu, a 24-year-old graduate of the Technical University of Iasi, in northeastern Romania.

Police detained Ciobanu in connection with a modified and milder version of the Blaster worm, said Patrick Vicol, a virus analyst at BitDefender.

Hedge fund trader fined $40 million

NEW YORK - A hedge fund gained unfair trading privileges at several big-name mutual fund companies in an illegal arrangement that law enforcement officials say is widespread and could be costing investors billions of dollars.

Canary Capital Partners LLC, a multimillion-dollar hedge fund, and its managers agreed to pay $30 million restitution for illegal profits generated from unlawful trading and a $10 million penalty, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Wednesday.

In exchange for big-money investments, Spitzer said, several mutual funds bent the rules applied to most investors and allowed Canary to make after-hours trades and short-term ``in and out'' deals.

Under the settlement's terms, Canary did not admit or deny wrongdoing, and its officers agreed to cooperate with the investigation. A statement from the firm said it agreed to the settlement ``to avoid protracted and complex litigation.''