Questions raised about Google’s policing as conman Gaurav Srivastava gets article de-listed

A leading investigative journalism publication has accused Indian businessman Gaurav Kumar Srivastava of lying to Google in order to de-index a story that exposed him as a conman and fraudster who abused the American secret service’s name to defraud a Dutch oil trader.

Project Brazen, which describes itself as the ultimate destination for fearless journalism, published a detailed story revealing how Gaurav Srivastava posed as an operative of Central Investigation Agency (CIA) to run international scams on several successful businessmen, including the Geneva-based Dutch oil trader Niels Troost.

Project Brazen is run by two respected former Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and Tom Wright, a Pulitzer Prize nominee.

It was revealed that Srivastava used a creative lie to complain to Google that the award-winning investigative journalism site had stolen the contents of story on Srivastava from another blog site. By using Google’s copyright policy to his advantage, Srivastava used a fraudulent technique to get the story on himself de-indexed by setting up a fake site and publishing the same content to claim it as his own – and then claimed copyright.

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One of the reporters on the investigative story, Soobin Kim, tweeted:

“Our @WhaleHunting_ story was removed from Google’s indexes due to copyright complaints. The complaints, saved on @lumendatabase, claim that we copied a backdated blog post, all content of which was lifted from our story. This is how fraudsters curate their online reputation.” https://x.com/soobinskim/status/1722747471888064525?s=20

Project Brazen from its official verified handle revealed the full scale of shocking fraud run on Google by Gaurav Srivastava to remove his expose from Google. In a thread, https://x.com/brazenFM/status/1722563387983351948?s=20 revealed:

“Our @WhaleHunting_ team recently reported on an alleged serial con man named Gaurav Srivastava, who masquerades as a CIA operative to swindle gullible business owners. Less than a month after the story ran, it disappeared from Google’s indexes. Instead, there was a note saying that search results had been removed due to complaints.

“On @lumendatabase, which collects online content removal notices, we found two complaints submitted to Google by someone named Sherrie Hagen, claiming that our story had infringed the copyright of a blog post on Tumblr.

“The post purporting to be the original had republished the text from the public preview of our story on @WhaleHunting_ , word for word. It was backdated to Oct 8th, two days before our date of publication, but the blog’s archive reveals that it was actually posted sometime in Nov.”

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This US-based Sherrie Hagen in fact filed four copyright complaints to Google in November 2023, with one even claiming she was based in the UK. The Tumblr blog post that was apparently the original source of this information has now been altered to a completely different story – a move that leaves little trace of reports on Srivastava’s fraudulent activity.

“Our @WhaleHunting_ team reviewed multiple court documents, transcripts, correspondences and more to report and write this story, which the blog claims as its own in the complaints submitted to @Google to get it de-indexed. It even lifted the image made by @ProjectBrazen’s creative director – a photo of Gaurav Srivastava with swords in the background, inspired by the ceremonial swords he pretends to have received from various heads of state, when he actually bought them for himself.”

“When you google “Gaurav Srivastava”, you can only find fawning articles that he likely paid for calling him a “philanthropist” and a “loving parent.” This is a glaring example of how copyright laws are abused to launder the reputations of fraudsters, and bury damning information.”

In January 2023 Srivastava and his wife Sharon were the subjects of a flurry of articles that appeared on websites like LA Weekly and The Ritz Herald. Despite their heritage-sounding names, these sites are little more than content mills for paid promotions. The articles had vapid titles, including “Five Ways to Get Involved in the Local Los Angeles Community” and “6 Lessons to Teach Your Kids Gratitude”, which is often a sign of a search-engine optimisation (SEO) program used to manage – or manipulate – the subject’s online profile.

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Bradley Hope had earlier tweeted: “The story of one of the world’s biggest independent oil traders and the alleged conman who nearly took over his company pretending to be a CIA “NOC” — on @WhaleHunting_ https://x.com/bradleyhope/status/1712891437870690408?s=20

Project Brazen had laid bare the full extent of how Srivastava conned the Dutch oil trader, leading to a legal battle, through an elaborate web of lies. https://whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/the-old-im-a-secret-spy-con/

According 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’s main spy agency – 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.

Troost 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 “knock”) 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 then be safe as 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.

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As his engagement with the Indian businessman continued, Troost had 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.

According 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 over several years.

Seeing the intelligence reports of Srivastava’s 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. Srivastava’s fraudulent scheme broke down on May 10, 2023 and is now subject to legal action.

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