The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Meridian International Logistics.md

title	aliases	created	updated	category	tags	summary	location	relations
Meridian International Logistics	Meridian International Logistics Meridian International Logistics, Inc. MIL MIL, Inc. Meridian Logistics Meridian Arms Meridian Arms Corporation	2026-05-17	2026-10-08	Private Organization	Company HoldingCompany ArmsTrade TheOctopus PROMIS OrganizedCrimeInvestigation MCA CabazonWackenhut NSA Yakuza	Nevada holding company of Robert Booth Nichols, owner of Meridian Arms Corporation, named in a 1987 FBI wiretap file on MCA's home-video chief and in Nichols's 1989 libel suit against FBI agent Thomas Gates.	Los Angeles, California	type with reverse fn head_of Robert Booth Nichols true 1 type with role start fn owned Meridian Arms Corporation 100 percent of the stock, as alleged in the 1989 complaint 1989-06-16 2 type with start role fn subject_of Federal Bureau of Investigation 1987-09 organized-crime investigation led by Special Agent Thomas Gates 6 type with reverse role fn director_of Eugene Giaquinto true board member, according to Cheri Seymour and Spy; resigned and returned 10,000 shares according to Seymour 8 type with reverse role fn director_of Peter Zokosky true board member, asked later to be taken off the board (Zokosky to Seymour, 2001) 13

Meridian International Logistics, Inc. (MIL) was a Nevada corporation with its principal place of business in Los Angeles, controlled by Robert Booth Nichols; its 1989 complaint against the Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Thomas Gates described it as doing business overseas, especially in Australia and Japan, and as the owner of all the stock of Meridian Arms Corporation.¹²

Corporate record

The corporation's Nevada charter is file number C417-1961. The Nevada Secretary of State filing index, as transcribed by OpenCorporates, begins with articles of incorporation on March 27, 1961, and lists amendments whose entries read Nevada Real Estate Investment Corporation (April 20, 1972), Harbor Resources Incorporated (February 12, 1979), Western Smelting & Refining, Inc. (April 20, 1982) and First Intercontinental Development Corporation (August 7, 1984, with authorized stock of 10,000,000 shares at one cent par). The record now stands under the name Meridian International Logistics, Inc., with annual lists of officers filed in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, a registered-agent change on March 30, 1992 to Edward G. Marshall of Las Vegas, a registered-agent resignation on August 16, 2006, and a status of "Permanently Revoked."³

Meridian Arms Corporation is a separate California stock corporation (number 0853005), with a registered address at 834 Rose Blossom Drive, Cupertino. Its filings show a California Franchise Tax Board suspension on December 1, 1986, a revivor on December 17, 1986, and a second suspension on November 1, 2000.⁴ The 1987 continuation affidavit of Gates gives Nichols's employment as Meridian International Logistics at the same Cupertino address.⁵

The 1987 FBI investigation

In September 1987 the FBI's Los Angeles Division began an investigation of Nichols, who, "acting through Meridian," was suspected of involvement in organized crime; Special Agent Thomas Gates led it, and learned that Nichols "had potential illegal contacts with individuals in both Japan and Australia," which he pursued through the Japanese and Australian legal attachés.⁶

The wiretap record consists of a series of sworn affidavits by Gates submitted to Judge J. Spencer Letts of the United States District Court for the Central District of California on March 27, May 20, June 25, July 15 and August 3, 1987, and a continuation affidavit, all in the inquiry into Martin Bacow, a labor negotiator, and Eugene Giaquinto, president of the home-entertainment division of Music Corporation of America. The continuation affidavit lists Nichols among the persons whose calls were to be intercepted, with a note that California Department of Justice records showed he had obtained several permits to possess and sell firearms, including machine guns. It states that FBI files showed that in 1978 Nichols "was allegedly an international money launderer for money generated through narcotics trafficking and organized crime (LCN) activities," and that he "may have been associated with the Gambino LCN family in New York City." It records a 1985 Honolulu arrest of Nichols for driving under the influence, and FBI surveillance on July 15, 1987 of Giaquinto leaving Le Dome restaurant on Sunset Boulevard with an unidentified male, who took a box from Giaquinto's trunk; Gates wrote that a booking photograph of Nichols appeared to show the same individual.⁵

In paragraph 5 the affidavit states that there was probable cause to believe that Giaquinto, Joseph Garofalo "and others as yet unknown" had been committing offenses "involving the sale and possession of controlled substances and a conspiracy to do so" under Title 21 of the United States Code, sections 841, 844 and 846, and that the intercepted conversations would establish, as the fourth item, "The source of funding for the purchasing of narcotics/controlled substances and the allocation and use of the proceeds from its trafficking." The stock-fraud offenses stated in the same paragraph name Giaquinto, Garofalo, Bacow and Nichols; the controlled-substance offenses name Giaquinto and Garofalo.⁵

Among the intercepts Gates summarized: on July 20, 1987 Giaquinto told Nichols that MCA stock had dropped four points, and Nichols said a "Hawaiian" had made a heavy deal and was of great value to people in a "reporting mode"; on July 23 Giaquinto described to Nichols a conversation about ZZZZ Best as a money-laundering operation for heroin money, and asked what to do if Nichols's name came up, and Gates rendered Nichols's answer as to tell the truth, that Nichols had written a treatment (a script) and was looking for a production company; on July 27 Nichols told Giaquinto he was leaving the country and gave a Hawaii number where "Harold (possibly Okimoto)" would have a tape put on the answering machine. In the affidavit's list of the Hawaii connections, a vehicle with Hawaii plates seen on July 15 was registered to Wells Fargo at a Honolulu residential address where a Harold Tadao Okimoto lived, the same address and telephone number Nichols had given at his 1985 arrest, and Gates reported that more than fifty vehicles in Hawaii were registered to Wells Fargo at different residential addresses although the bank had no auto-leasing business there, a method of registration that led him to believe "some type of covert activity may be involved."⁵

The author Dan Moldea wrote that the reporter Anita Busch asked him about "mystery man Robert Booth Nichols, a shadowy associate of Seagal's," meaning the actor Steven Seagal, and that he suggested she call Richard Stavin, the former federal prosecutor "who had investigated him."⁷ Cheri Seymour wrote that Stavin and Gates "conducted the wiretaps relating to Meridian International Logistics"; that Nichols told her on February 13, 1992 that MCA was trying to leverage itself for sale to the Japanese and that Giaquinto was also a corporate partner in his company; and that when the two learned of the FBI investigation Giaquinto resigned from MIL and returned his stock certificates.⁸

Meridian International Logistics v. United States

On June 16, 1989, MIL sued Gates in Los Angeles Superior Court, in his individual capacity, for libel, slander and interference with contractual relationships, praying for $11,000,000. The complaint, as summarized in MIL's brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, alleged that Gates had made statements to the Australian Federal Police in Canberra, to persons in Brisbane and Innisfail, Queensland, and to an individual in Tokyo, that MIL was guilty of a $500,000,000 "share fraud," that MIL and its officers had participated in a Sydney-based confidence scheme in 1982, and that its officers were involved with the Gambino Crime Family and the Yakuza; it alleged the statements were false and known by Gates to be false, and that he acted outside his authority.² The brief put to the court the question whether an FBI agent could tell a foreign police force that officers of MIL were involved with the Mafia and the Yakuza.²

On July 20, 1989 the United States Attorney certified that Gates had acted within the scope of his employment, which removed the case to federal court and substituted the United States as defendant. The government filed declarations from Gates, his supervisor and a Department of Justice attorney, which the district court sealed and reviewed in camera. MIL filed a declaration from the former FBI special agent Ted Gunderson that the foreign contacts "would never, under FBI policies, be initiated by an agent assigned to the Los Angeles field office." On September 25, 1989 the district court found that Gates had acted within the scope of his employment and dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. On July 19, 1991 the Ninth Circuit (No. 90-55281, Judge Wiggins) held the sealed ex parte procedure proper on the facts, but reversed because the declarations "only assert generally that Gates' investigation was proper" and did not address the specific allegations about the foreign contacts; it remanded for further documentary proof.⁶ Spy (magazine) reported in January 1993 that the suit had recently been dismissed.⁹

Board members and subsidiary

Seymour wrote, on the basis of her 1992 investigation, that the board of directors of Meridian Arms consisted of Nichols, Peter Zokosky, Harold Okimoto, Glen R. Shockley and others, that Michael Riconosciuto had once been vice president of Meridian Arms, and that Giaquinto sat on the MIL board and formally resigned, returning 10,000 shares, after the FBI investigation became known to Nichols; she attached what she described as documentation of the resignation. She also described corporate minutes dated August 26, 1988 that referred to a grant available to a Japanese medical school, and wrote that Nichols, when she asked, said he had facilitated research on cytotoxic T-lymphocytes through five offshore institutes, classified by the sponsoring governments.¹⁰ Seymour also wrote that Riconosciuto claimed Nichols was under Okimoto of the Hawaiian Islands, who was represented as an intelligence person and had worked under Frank Carlucci for years.¹¹

Spy's January 1993 account, by John Connolly, states that by 1981 Nichols and Zokosky, a retired arms manufacturer, had formed the munitions company Meridian Arms, which joined a small California Indian tribe and the Wackenhut Corporation in a scheme to manufacture arms on the reservation; that Nichols obtained California machine-gun permits, in Meridian's effort to supply guns for the contras, with a recommendation from a CIA official named Larry Curran; that his application listed Okimoto, "believed by intelligence sources to be a high-ranking member of Japan's Yakuza crime syndicate," as a former employer; and that Giaquinto, "then president of the home-entertainment division of MCA," sat on the board of Meridian Arms's parent company. Spy wrote that the taps caught Giaquinto and Nichols discussing possible takeovers of MCA and the effect on stock prices, that the wiretaps showed Giaquinto enjoyed a special relationship with John Gotti, and that before leaving MCA and the board Giaquinto proposed to Jack Valenti that the Motion Picture Association of America hire Nichols to coordinate anti-piracy work in Asia. Valenti told Spy, "I didn't feel comfortable with Nichols." Spy also wrote that the investigation "was later quashed by Reagan-administration officials."⁹

David Corn reported in The Nation in October 1991 that, according to legal records, Nichols ran MIL, "a California-based company that does extensive business overseas, especially in Australia and Japan; engages in innovative medical research; markets low-cost earth removal systems; and owns 100 percent of Meridian Arms Corporation." Citing the correspondence of a business associate, Corn wrote that Nichols's company was formed in the 1970s to develop a submachine gun producible for $50 or less, that the State Department's objection to exporting the technology caused difficulties, that production had been planned for Australia in 1983, and that in 1984 Nichols wrote of "enhanced gaseous fuel devices." Riconosciuto, Corn wrote, said he and Nichols had a falling-out in 1984. Corn also reported that a copy of the Gates wiretap request was in Danny Casolaro's papers.¹

Gates and the House Judiciary Committee

Seymour reproduced reports she attributed to John Cohen, an investigator for the House Committee on the Judiciary, of conversations with Gates. In them Gates is recorded as saying that "high level Department of Justice officials" had a close working relationship with the board of directors of MCA, that he learned this from FBI wiretaps on MCA, and that the wiretaps disclosed "high level DOJ officials were tied to illegal activities of MCA"; that a wiretap conversation between Nichols and a Justice Department official showed Nichols was warned the FBI was investigating him; that the wiretaps showed "a close working relationship between the Board of Directors of MCA, Attorney General Edwin Meese, and the White House"; that Giaquinto told Bacow he would call Meese and have the FBI investigation of MCA stopped; and that the investigation was shut down and sealed by the Department of Justice because the Japanese were interested in purchasing MCA. Gates is further recorded as saying the wiretap "extensively documents Robert Booth Nichols' connection with the highest levels of the U.S. Department of Justice."¹²

The House Judiciary Committee's report records that Gates gave a sworn statement on March 25 and 26, 1992; that Gates said Casolaro claimed to have found a link between the Inslaw matter, the activities at the Cabazon reservation and the entertainment-industry organized-crime investigation; that Nichols, "according to documents submitted to a Federal court by the FBI, has ties with organized crime and the world of covert intelligence operations"; and that Gates maintained that pertinent information on Nichols's past existed in sealed wiretap and grand jury records. Stavin provided the committee a 72-page affidavit by Gates, and the committee stated that it took no position on Gates's assertions concerning Nichols except that they were sworn statements.¹³

Cabazon and Wackenhut

The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report on Inslaw recorded that in a December 1991 telephone call Nichols said that he and Riconosciuto had worked together at the Cabazon Indian Reservation in the early 1980s, that he had been hired by Dr. John Philip Nichols, who worked with Riconosciuto on the joint venture, and that he wanted Zokosky present at any later interview. It concluded: "there have been a number of speculative reports and fragmentary records purporting to link Robert Booth Nichols, through a company called Meridian Arms Corporation, and Michael Riconosciuto to certain covert intelligence activities, including a joint venture between the Cabazon Indian Reservation and Wackenhut, Inc.," and called the continuing intersection of the names of Riconosciuto, Earl Brian, Nichols and the reservation "certainly intriguing and curious asssociations" [sic] without the "causation and factual convergence necessary to draw conclusions."¹⁴

The Justice Department's 1993 report by Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua found the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture was formed in April 1981 to bid on government guard contracts, with John Philip Nichols as tribal administrator negotiating for the tribe; that Zokosky, a former president of Armtec Defense Products, became an advisor to Nichols and the venture on combustible cartridge casings; that Zokosky and others from the venture travelled to Picatinny Arsenal to meet Dr. Harry Fair; and that no evidence supported Riconosciuto's claims that PROMIS work took place there.¹⁵

Zokosky's account of the company

Zokosky told Seymour and the journalist Kelly O'Meara on February 14, 2001 that he had been asked by Nichols to join the MIL board and had later asked to be removed; that MIL was a "front company" used for "funneling money to pay the board of directors," payments of "five figures"; that the money came from the NSA, which makes a "profit," and he alluded that some of the money came from drug profits; and that drugs were called "gold" and used as currency. He said John Vanderwerker and Glenn Shockley worked for the CIA and were involved with the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture. He said it was his understanding that Nichols worked for the National Security Council, "everything revolves around the NSC," doing contract work for the NSA and NSC and occasionally for other agencies. He also said that Nichols and Riconosciuto did business in Australia that he thought had something to do with the Nugan Hand Bank, that he and Nichols and others had presented a proposal to develop biological warfare technology at Stormont Laboratories for sale to the Army (to Dr. Harry Fair at Picatinny Arsenal) and to FMC Corporation, and that Nichols had once worked for Okimoto in Hawaii. In the same interview he showed a three-page FBI Los Angeles report dated December 2, 1982, which Seymour summarized as stating that a confidential source had alleged on March 16, 1978 that Nichols was "an international money launderer," that his name was associated with the illegal transportation of narcotics through the "Golden Triangle," and that Nichols "should be considered armed and dangerous."¹⁶

Casolaro and Nichols

Bua's report records that after a dinner at a friend's home Casolaro telephoned Nichols at his Los Angeles home from 1:40 to 2:46 a.m. Eastern time, and that Nichols told the investigators Casolaro mentioned planning a trip to the Cabazon reservation to "wrap up" his research. It records that Nichols told a Martinsburg detective on September 30, 1991 that Casolaro had been murdered and that Riconosciuto was probably involved, and states that Nichols was in London on the day Casolaro died. It describes the January 1993 Spy article as suggesting that Nichols had Casolaro killed for fear of being exposed as someone who years earlier had offered to become an FBI informant against the Mafia, and states that the investigators found no evidence he had anything to do with the death. In a footnote Bua stated that Nichols testified on March 11, 1993 that he had been a member of the United States intelligence community for many years, and continued: "No evidence supports that claim. In fact, the 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."¹⁷

The House report records that Hamilton and Riconosciuto told its investigators Nichols was Casolaro's primary source, that Nichols in a January 21, 1992 interview said he acted as a sounding board for Casolaro, and that Nichols would not give a sworn statement; Stavin stated under oath that Casolaro had called him about a week before his death and mentioned Robert Nichols.¹⁸

Footnotes

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1. Corn, David. "The Dark World of Danny Casolaro." The Nation, October 28, 1991, pp. 511-515 (Nichols "runs Meridian International Logistics ... and owns 100 percent of Meridian Arms Corporation"). https://archive.org/details/Danny-Casolaro ↩︎

2. Appellant's Opening Brief, Meridian International Logistics, Inc. v. Gates, No. 90-55281 (9th Cir.), Robinson, Robinson & Phillips, certificate dated June 27, 1990, statement of the case and issues presented (the complaint as filed in Los Angeles Superior Court June 16, 1989, removed as CV 89-4383 RG (Kx) before Judge Richard A. Gadbois, Jr.). Scanned in the Danny Casolaro papers, State Historical Society of Missouri. https://archive.org/details/MeridianV.Gates ↩︎

3. OpenCorporates, record for Meridian International Logistics, Inc., Nevada company C417-1961, and its filing list (retrieved October 8, 2026). https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nv/C417-1961 ; https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nv/C417-1961/filings. ↩︎

4. OpenCorporates, record for Meridian Arms Corporation, California company 0853005 (retrieved October 8, 2026). https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/0853005 ↩︎

5. Affidavit of Special Agent Thomas G. Gates in support of an application to continue interception of wire communications of Martin Bacow, Eugene Giaquinto, Angelo Commito, Edward Sciandra, Michael Del Gaizo, Joseph Garofalo, Robert Nichols and others, before Judge J. Spencer Letts, C.D. Cal. (continuation affidavit citing intercepts through September 1, 1987), paragraphs 3, 5, 9-13, 46, 69, 76, 79 and 84; Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Gates." Seymour, The Last Circle, p. 356, paraphrases the narcotics-funding wording as describing MIL as "at that time suspected as a 'source of funding'"; the affidavit places the wording under the controlled-substance offenses of Giaquinto and Garofalo. https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks (file Gates.pdf) ↩︎

6. Meridian International Logistics, Inc. v. United States, 939 F.2d 740 (9th Cir. July 19, 1991) (No. 90-55281); the brief at note 2 describes MIL as "a Nevada corporation which has its primary place of business in Los Angeles." https://static.case.law/f2d/939/cases/0740-01.json ↩︎

7. Moldea, Dan E. Hollywood Confidential: A True Story of Wiretapping, Friendship, and Betrayal, chapter 1 excerpt. https://www.moldea.com/BPFH-ChapterOne.pdf ↩︎

8. Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. TrineDay, 2010, pp. 351 and 356. https://archive.org/details/TheInslawAffair . Sole source for the Giaquinto resignation. ↩︎

9. Connolly, John. "The Story That Killed Danny Casolaro." Spy, January 1993. https://archive.org/details/SpyMagazine (1992-12-DEC-JAN) ↩︎

10. Seymour, Cheri. "VORTEX," diary dated February 24, 1992, affidavit page notarized October 28, 1992, pp. 11-12; Internet Archive item VORTEXDocument records Seymour's later statement that it was written hurriedly under duress and before she verified its contents. https://archive.org/details/VORTEXDocument ↩︎

11. Seymour, The Last Circle, TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the passage so cited. ↩︎

12. Seymour, The Last Circle, pp. 347-349 ("Report No. 5" and "Report No. 6," which Seymour wrote were by John Cohen, from conversations with Thomas Gates). Sole source for the passages so cited. https://archive.org/details/TheOctopusExposed ↩︎

13. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. The INSLAW Affair, H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, section on Danny Casolaro and notes 212-217. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport ↩︎

14. Same, notes 134 and 222. ↩︎

15. U.S. Department of Justice, Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua (March 1993), section on the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture, pp. 55-58. https://archive.org/details/doj-oip-inslaw-1993 ↩︎

16. Seymour, The Last Circle, pp. 337-342, interview of Peter Zokosky, February 14, 2001, from Seymour's and O'Meara's notes. https://archive.org/details/TheOctopusExposed . Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

17. Bua report (note 15), pp. 157-159 and note 58 (on p. 159), citing Booth Nichols v. City of Los Angeles, No. NCC 31322B, trial transcript, March 11, 1993, pp. 32 et seq. ↩︎

18. House report (note 13), notes 213 and 214 (Stavin sworn statement, March 13, 1992, pp. 23-24; memorandum of interview with Nichols, January 21, 1992). ↩︎