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---
---
category: "Key Figures"
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-05-17
tags:
- Person
- PROMIS
- CIA
- Organized_Crime
summary: Robert Booth Nichols was an international intelligence operative and central figure in Danny Casolaro's Octopus investigation, with documented ties to NSC covert operations, organized crime networks including the Gambino and Bufalino families and the Yakuza, and arms development programs at the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture.
born: 1943
location: Loma Linda, California
- OrganizedCrime
- TheOctopus
- Fraud
summary: "Businessman and self-described intelligence operative who was a principal source for Danny Casolaro, the subject of an FBI organized-crime investigation, and in 2004 the recipient of a ten-million-dollar fee from the Bayou hedge-fund fraud."
born: 1943-03-03
location:
- "Los Angeles, California"
- "Honolulu, Hawaii"
relations:
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]"
start: 1987-09
role: "organized-crime investigation led by Special Agent Thomas Gates"
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[Thomas Gates]]"
reverse: true
start: 1987-09
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Meridian International Logistics]]"
fn: 2
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Samuel Israel III]]"
start: 2004-07-11
role: "Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement; ten-million-dollar fee"
fn: 5
- type: spouse_of
with: "[[Ellen M. Nichols]]"
fn: 5
- type: director_of
with: "[[First Intercontinental Development Corporation]]"
role: "director, senior vice president, chairman of the investment committee (sole source: Seymour)"
fn: 1
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-09-22
---
Robert Booth Nichols was born in 1943 or 1944. He appeared repeatedly in the investigative threads pursued by journalist [[Danny Casolaro]] and in FBI and DOJ records as an individual straddling the boundaries of U.S. intelligence operations and international organized crime. Despite extensive FBI investigation and wiretap surveillance, Nichols reportedly had no arrest record as of the time of Casolaro's death in 1991.[^1]
### Organizational Affiliations
Robert Booth Nichols was born in the [[United States]] on March 3, 1943.[^5] He was a principal source for the journalist [[Danny Casolaro]] in the investigation Casolaro called [[The Octopus]], and the subject of a [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] organized-crime investigation from 1987.[^2][^3]
Nichols served as a Director, Senior Vice President, and Chairman of the Investment Committee of the [[First Intercontinental Development Corporation]] (FIDCO), described in Casolaro's research as a [[National Security Council|NSC]] cutout used in Lebanon for covert operations, including negotiations around large-scale reconstruction financing and the arranged release of a prisoner. Other FIDCO board members included [[Michael A. McManus]], [[George K. Pender]], [[Robert Maheu]], [[Clint W. Murchison, Jr.]], [[Kenneth A. Roe]], [[Frances T. Fox]], [[William M. Pender]], and [[Glen R. Shockley]].[^1]
### Meridian and the FBI
Nichols was also a principal in Meridian International Logistics (MIL), a holding company that the Los Angeles FBI was investigating as "a source of funding for the purchasing of narcotics/controlled substances and the allocation and use of the proceeds from its trafficking." MIL was additionally described as an NSC cutout for funneling money to board members. [[Eugene Giaquinto]], then president of the [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]] home entertainment division, sat on MIL's board, and FBI wiretaps on MCA recorded communications between Nichols and Giaquinto. Nichols also held the position of Chief Executive Officer of R.B.N. Companies, International, a holding company involved in high technology electronics manufacturing, real estate development, and international finance.[^1]
In September 1987 the FBI's [[Los Angeles]] division opened an investigation of Nichols, who, "acting through Meridian, was suspected of being involved in organized crime"; it was led by Special Agent [[Thomas Gates]], who learned that Nichols "had potential illegal contacts with individuals in both Japan and Australia" and pursued them through the FBI's legal attachés there. On June 16, 1989, Nichols's company, [[Meridian International Logistics]], sued Gates in California state court for eleven million dollars for libel, slander and interference with contracts, alleging that he had told the Australian Federal Police and others that Meridian was involved in organized crime and fraud; the former FBI agent [[Ted Gunderson]] filed a declaration that such foreign contacts "would never, under FBI policies, be initiated by an agent assigned to the Los Angeles field office." The government substituted itself for Gates, and on July 19, 1991, the Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the suit.[^2]
Through a Meridian subsidiary, Meridian Arms, Nichols partnered with [[Michael Riconosciuto]] and provided technical assistance to [[Wackenhut Corporation]] in the proposed development of advanced armaments at the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation]] near Indio, California, including work on proposals for FMC Corporation covering advanced military technologies.[^1]
According to [[Cheri Seymour]], the FBI investigated Meridian as "a source of funding for the purchasing of narcotics/controlled substances"; [[Eugene Giaquinto]], president of the home entertainment division of [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]], sat on its board, and FBI wiretaps on MCA recorded his calls with Nichols.[^1] Gates swore in a 72-page affidavit to a federal court on an FBI wiretap of figures in the entertainment industry suspected of organized-crime ties; the House Judiciary Committee, which heard from Gates that the threads of Casolaro's inquiry led to "a single individual, Robert Booth Nichols," took "no position on any of Gates' assertions or suppositions vis-a-vis Nichols, except to note again that they were duly sworn statements."[^3]
### Intelligence Operations
### Allegations
Nichols was described by Casolaro's sources as a contract operative for the NSC at the time of Casolaro's death in August 1991, providing services across multiple government agencies on a for-hire basis. Documented activities included assisting [[Ignacio Paz]] of the Philippine government in removing large sums of money from the Philippines through Swiss bank accounts, and involvement in an NSC-directed narcotics operation in Lebanon conducted through Euramae Trading Company in Nicosia, Cyprus, where heroin flow was maintained to preserve the operational credibility of intelligence sources. Other figures in this network identified by Riconosciuto included [[Michael T. Hurley]] (DEA Country Attache), [[Maurice Ghanem]], and [[George Pender]].[^1]
Seymour's book, largely on the word of [[Michael Riconosciuto]], describes Nichols as a director, senior vice president and chairman of the investment committee of the [[First Intercontinental Development Corporation]], a company alleged to have served the [[National Security Council]] in Lebanon; as chief executive of R.B.N. Companies, International; as a contract operative for the NSC; as the man who helped [[Ignacio Paz]] of the Philippine government move money through Swiss accounts; and as a participant in a heroin operation run through Euramae Trading in Nicosia, [[Cyprus]]. In the same account he laundered money and gold for [[Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela|Gilberto Rodríguez]] and [[Jose Santacruz Londono|José Santacruz Londoño]] of the [[Cali Drug Cartel]], was linked to the [[Gambino Crime Family]], the [[Bufalino Crime Family]] and the [[Yakuza]], was called the "godson" of [[Harold Okimoto]] of Hawaii, and was the subject of investigations that the [[Department of Justice]] shut down.[^1] Neither the House report nor the special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] mentions the First Intercontinental Development Corporation.[^3][^4]
### Organized Crime Connections
Riconosciuto swore to the House committee that [[Earl Brian]] and [[Peter Videnieks]] had delivered [[PROMIS]] to the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation]] for "refitting," and Seymour describes Nichols's company Meridian Arms as a partner of Riconosciuto in the proposed weapons work of the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] joint venture there. The committee called the material linking Nichols, Meridian Arms and Riconosciuto to the Cabazon-Wackenhut venture "speculative reports and fragmentary records," and the "continuing intersection" of those names "certainly intriguing and curious associations but without the requisite degree of causation and factual convergence necessary to draw conclusions."[^1][^3] Bua found Riconosciuto "totally unreliable."[^4]
The Los Angeles FBI investigated Nichols as a suspected international money launderer for both narcotics proceeds and organized crime. His telex number (652483 RBN ASSOCS LSA) was linked to financial transactions in Lebanon. He was described in DEA and FBI records as associated with illegal narcotics transportation through the [[Golden Triangle]] and was named in drug prosecutions as "Mr. Big" within the [[Medellin Cartel]]. According to Michael Riconosciuto, Nichols handled gold transfers, money laundering operations, and "virtual dead drops" for organized crime figures including [[Gilbert Rodriguez]] and [[Jose Santacruz Londono]] of the [[Cali Drug Cartel]]. He was linked to [[La Cosa Nostra]], specifically the [[Gambino Crime Family]] and [[Bufalino Crime Family]], and to the [[Yakuza]]. Nichols was also alleged to be the "godson" of [[Harold Okimoto]], described in intelligence records as a senior Japanese organized crime figure based in Hawaii.[^1]
Nichols testified in 1993, in his suit against the Los Angeles Police Department, that he had been a member of the American intelligence community for many years. The Justice Department's review of 1994 reported that "No evidence supports that claim. In fact, the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] informed us that it does not have, nor has it ever had, any employment relationship, contractual relationship or any other association with Mr. Booth Nichols," and that documents showed Howard Hughes's Summa Corporation had rejected the bid for its assets that Nichols testified he had been "instructed" to make in the late 1970s.[^4]
Investigations into Nichols' activities, including active FBI wiretap operations, were reportedly shut down by the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]] on multiple occasions when they approached high-level organized crime and narcotics connections.[^1]
### Casolaro
### Relationship with Danny Casolaro
Telephone records show that Casolaro and Nichols "spoke regularly and at length" in the last months of Casolaro's life, and the two had dinner at a restaurant in Virginia in the early summer of 1991. Nichols told committee investigators he had been "a sounding board" for Casolaro and would not give a sworn statement.[^3] On September 30, 1991, he told Detective Sergeant Swartwood of the Martinsburg police that he thought Casolaro had been murdered and that Riconosciuto "was probably involved in some way." The review noted a January 1993 *[[Spy (magazine)|Spy]]* article suggesting that Nichols had Casolaro killed for fear of being exposed as a would-be FBI informant against the Mafia, and found "no evidence that he had anything to do with Mr. Casolaro's death. Furthermore, he was in London on the day that Mr. Casolaro died."[^4] According to Seymour, Nichols had warned Casolaro to drop the investigation and went to Martinsburg to press him in person, Casolaro had confronted him shortly before his death about [[Michael Abbell]] and the Cali cartel, and Nichols later wrote a manuscript, "Danny Casolaro's Octopus."[^1]
Casolaro spent hundreds of hours in telephone communication with Nichols during the course of his [[The Octopus|Octopus]] investigation. According to Riconosciuto, Nichols had warned Casolaro to abandon his investigation, and flew to Martinsburg, [[West Virginia]], to press him in person about the danger. In the period immediately before Casolaro's death on August 10, 1991, Casolaro had confronted Nichols with information about Nichols' connection to [[Michael Abbell]] and the Cali Drug Cartel, a lead Riconosciuto had provided. Nichols subsequently wrote a manuscript titled "Danny Casolaro's Octopus" after Casolaro's death, in which Nichols indicated his personal belief that Casolaro had been murdered.[^1]
### The Bayou Fee
In the spring of 2004 Nichols offered [[Samuel Israel III]], manager of the Bayou hedge funds, access to what British investigators later described as programs with "all of the hallmarks of fraudulent prime bank note programs." After more than 150 million dollars of Bayou money passed through a London account of the "Humanitarian Coalition Aid Foundation" and back in April 2004, Nichols and Israel signed a "Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement" on July 11, 2004, and on July 19 Israel wired ten million dollars to accounts in Germany, Liechtenstein, Singapore and the [[United Kingdom]] in the name of or controlled by Nichols, about eight million of which ended in a London account in the names of Nichols and his wife, Ellen. The Bayou funds' liquidating entity sued the couple in 2008 to recover the fee as a fraudulent transfer; they answered that he had received it "for value, in good faith and without knowledge of the alleged voidability of the transfer." Nichols was deposed on video at the [[U.S. Attorney's office]] in Manhattan on December 16, 2008, and the case was closed on April 28, 2010.[^5][^6] At the time his address was in Honolulu.[^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the claims so attributed, many of them from Michael Riconosciuto.
[^2]: *Meridian International Logistics, Inc. v. United States,* 939 F.2d 740 (9th Cir. 1991). https://openjurist.org/939/f2d/740
[^3]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, section on Earl Brian, Michael Riconosciuto, Robert Booth Nichols and the Cabazon Indian Reservation, and memorandum of interview with Nichols, January 21, 1992. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport
[^4]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993 (Riconosciuto's credibility), and *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, section on the death of Danny Casolaro, citing *Booth Nichols v. City of Los Angeles,* No. NCC 31322B, trial transcript, March 11, 1993. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993
[^5]: Annis, Stephen Robert, Assets Recovery Agency. Witness statement in support of an application for a restraint order, *In the Matter of Robert Booth Nichols,* Crown Court at Blackfriars, PCA 2007/0003; Financial and Security Consultancy Agreement, July 11, 2004; Answer of Robert B. Nichols and Ellen M. Nichols, June 12, 2008; all filed in *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols,* No. 08-cv-06036 (S.D.N.Y.). https://archive.org/details/SamIsraelIII-BayouManagement-RobertBoothNicholsCourtFilings
[^6]: Nichols, Robert Booth. Videotaped deposition, December 16, 2008, *United States v. Samuel Israel III,* 05 Cr. 1039 (S.D.N.Y.), and *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols.* https://archive.org/details/robert-booth-nichols ; docket, *Bayou Management, LLC v. Nichols,* 1:08-cv-06036 (S.D.N.Y.), filed July 2, 2008, terminated April 28, 2010, CourtListener.