A controversial India businessman Gaurav Kumar Srivastava, currently living in the US, has been accused of orchestrating international scams in which he claimed to be a Central Investigation Agency (CIA) operative to defraud global businessmen, including the Geneva-based Dutch oil trader Niels Troost.
\nAn investigation published in respected investigative journalism forum \u201cProject Brazen\u201d has laid bare the full extent of how Srivastava conned the Dutch oil trader, leading to a legal battle. The elaborate web of lies has been exposed at the \u201cProject Brazen\u201d by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter Bradley Hope and Scobin Kim
\nAccording to the available evidence, Gaurav Srivastava met Troost in summer 2022 at the G20 summit in Bali that November. The Atlantic Council hosted the event sponsored with more than $1 million by the Gaurav & Sharon Srivastava Foundation, the non-profit NGO run by Srivastava with his wife Sharon Srivastava (n\u00e9e Johnson) in the name of \u2018securing food & energy for America and the world\u2019. Troost and Srivastava joined a panel of experts to discuss global food security, and the Atlantic Council\u2019s President Frederick Kempe profusely thanked Srivastava for his generous donation but he had no idea what would happen in the following months.
\nAccording to the Project Brazen investigation, Niels Troost was introduced in summer 2022 by a mutual contact to Gaurav Kumar Srivastava, who pretended to be very well connected with the Washington power circles and also to the country\u2019s main spy agency \u2013 the CIA. At that time, the oil trader was in a state of growing panic as someone purporting to be a US government informant had falsely led him to believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating him and his commodities-trading company headquartered in Switzerland, Paramount Energy & Commodities SA. Months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Paramount was continuing to trade Russian oil, mainly crude, in full compliance with the law, shipping from a port near Vladivostok. At the time, the G-7 was actively considering a price cap on Russian oil, with the US as its biggest supporter.
\nTroost asked Gaurav Srivastava for help. Srivastava assured him that he will deal with the FBI and led Troost to believe he was a “non-official cover” or NOC (pronounced \u201cknock\u201d) for the CIA and operated at the senior level amongst a total of 30 NOCs around the world. Srivastava put forth a dubious proposition: if Troost could make Srivastava a partner in the business, by moving 50% of the shares of Paramount to a Delaware-incorporated company controlled by Srivastava, and domicile Paramount into the US, Troost would quietly be excused from future sanctions on Russia, because he would then be part of a state-approved network to collect intelligence on behalf of the US. Srivastava stipulated that the transfer must take place through US law firm Baker & Hostetler.
\nAccording to the investigation, Srivastava lied to Troost that he was involved in top-secret counter-terrorism missions, including several in Afghanistan, and that in 2008 he was held hostage by ISIS in the Democratic Republic of Congo \u2013 despite there being no evidence of ISIS in the DRC at the time.
\nAccording to a transcript of their meeting, Srivastava, who was born in Lucknow in Northern India and now appears to reside in Los Angeles with his wife Sharon, told Troost that it was through his work as a CIA agent that he was able to make high-level contacts in Congress and the State Department and that these contacts would allow Troost to continue doing business in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine with a special license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), provided that he agreed to Srivastava\u2019s conditions. According to the legal papers, Troost engaged Baker & Hostetler as Paramount’s counsel in November 2022. He was not, however, made aware that Jeffrey Berg, a partner at firm, and Srivastava were business partners in a South African company called Himmelhoch Petroleum and Gas.
\nLegal papers show that within a year, Troost had transferred 50% of the shares to Srivastava but had yet to complete the US domiciling of Paramount due to rising doubts about Srivastava’s bona fides. Srivastava made tall claims about his CIA and FBI connections but was unable to show any evidence of his influence, making Troost increasingly uneasy.
\nWhen Srivastava realised that Troost was having doubts and delaying, he turned hostile towards the oil trader and told him he must hurry with the US domiciling or else he can forget about any favors. In an aggressively worded text message to Troost, he wrote: \u201cStop with games & tell you staff too or as a shareholder I want to block the funds of the company. I told you not BS me. I am really done Niels.\u201d
\nGaurav Kumar Srivastava ramped up his name-dropping as well, telling Troost that he had weathered a profane outburst from the Director of the CIA, William J. Burns, because Troost was dragging his feet over this particular transaction.
\nAccording to legal papers, it was in April 2023 that Troost hired investigators to perform due diligence on Srivastava and discovered a chilling history of fraud suits and unpaid bills: in 2017, a Colombian businessman sued Srivastava for sales of unlicensed medical devices; in 2019, a hospital sued Srivastava for stopping payments on checks paid for medical bills; in the same year, a woman in Los Angeles sued Srivastava and his wife for failing to repay a loan of $100,000; Srivastava counter-sued her for slander when she sent a message to Srivastava’s potential business partner calling him “a thief and a con artist,” whereupon the potential business partner withdrew from a multi-million-dollar business deal.
\nSeeing the intelligence reports of Srivastava\u2019s alleged fraud, Troost realized that Srivastava had no connections with the CIA and that he was only a huckster who cobbled together false stories to feign an air of importance, exclusivity and impunity. His true intention, Troost came to believe, was to make off with Paramount once it was domiciled into the US, adding to a portfolio of pilfered companies.
\nWhen Troost refused to respond, Srivastava and his attorney Berg met with the ambassador of Turkiye to the US to attempt to derail Troost’s business arrangements to invest in a terminal in the country. Berg wrote a letter to the Swiss ambassador to the US and the US ambassador to Switzerland, levelling false and increasingly wild allegations about Troost\u2019s business in the hope that Paramount would come under official scrutiny. This matter is subject to ongoing legal action where Gaurav Srivastava has been described as a serial conman and fraud. The cases are set to reveal more scandalous material in coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A controversial India businessman Gaurav Kumar Srivastava, currently living in the US, has been accused of orchestrating international scams in which he claimed to be a Central Investigation Agency (CIA) operative to defraud global businessmen, including the Geneva-based Dutch oil trader Niels Troost. An investigation published in respected investigative journalism forum \u201cProject Brazen\u201d has laid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-376441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national"},"yoast_head":"\n