Gaurav Srivastava, an American-Indian conman who has been involved in corruption, fraud and intimidation, used a donation to the Atlantic Council to clean up his image through his so-called charitable organisation, evidence shows.

According to an investigation, the Atlantic Council has been the only non-profit organization to whom the Gaurav and Sharon Srivastava Family Foundation made a contribution. It is believed that the Atlantic Council was used as leverage for Gaurav and Sharon Srivastava to whitewash their reputation, as well as to approach wealthy targets. Pictures of Srivastava next to Washington ‘establishment’ personalities like General Wesley Clark and Atlantic Council chief Fred Kempe act as props for Srivastava to claim that he is a serious figure – when in fact he is a fraudster.

The Atlantic Council has also been questioned for accepting donations without conducting any due diligence checks. The think-tank has not responded to questions on the growing scandal around their donor’s conduct, including threats to journalists, a series of frauds and the abuse of Google and Tumblr.

According to our investigation, the Gaurav and Sharon Srivastava Foundation does not function as a real non-profit organization or foundation but only acts to disguise the Srivastava couple as philanthropists. In fact, the Foundation was registered as a “corporation” in Delaware State on 12 October 2022, whereas it falsely claimed to have been founded in 2015.

The Foundation is not registered in the US federal tax authority IRS as a charitable organization or private foundation. Neither does the fake foundation comply with the regulation to file Form 990.

According to evidence, the only activity of the Foundation that we have identified was its donation and partnership with the Atlantic Council in November 2022 – a mere month after it was formed. Recently, amid strong accusations of Gaurav Srivastava’s fraudulent activities, the Atlantic Council has been questioned for accepting funds without a full due diligence check of its donator and the source of his funds.

While the Foundation is said to have been established in 2015, a company named The Gaurav & Sharon Srivastava Family Foundation was registered in the secretive state of Delaware (USA) on 12 October 2022. However, foundations are typically not registered as corporations, and the earliest archives on the foundation's website only date back to November 2022. These factors raise doubts about its establishment date and credibility.

We have also identified the Foundation applied for its trademark on 23 February 2023, assisted by US attorney Jonathan Berger. The trademark application affirmed that the legal entity type of the Foundation is a ‘Corporation’ – not a charitable organisation.

Although the entity type is shown as “Exempt” in Delaware, the Foundation is not registered in the US federal tax authority IRS as a charitable organization or private foundation. Neither does the foundation comply with the regulation to file Form 990. This lack of compliance indicates that the Gaurav and Sharon Srivastava Family Foundation is not a real foundation and does not operate for genuine charitable reasons.

Gaurav Kumar Srivastava has been exposed as a fraudster who is involved in large scale scams, some of which include using the name of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to make money fraudulently from international businessmen.

The Atlantic Council hosted its 2022 Global Food Security Forum in Bali, sponsored with more than $1 million by the Gaurav & Sharon Srivastava Foundation. Srivastava joined a panel of experts to discuss global food security, and the Atlantic Council’s President Fred Kempe profusely thanked Srivastava for his generous donation but sources say Kempe had no idea what would happen in the following months.

They say that at that time the Project Brazen investigation (https://whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/the-old-im-a-secret-spy-con/) had not published details of corruption scandal into Gaurav Srivastava. The investigation, by respected journalists Bradley Hope and Soobin Kim, found that Srivastava pretended to be a CIA spy in order to fraudulently take over assets of a Dutch trader after assuring him of help using his alleged “CIA” links. He told the trader that he was an agent operating under "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.

As suspicions mounted, Srivastava issued threats to the Dutch trader and his family after the con began to unravel; the trader refused to transfer shares to him, following the discovery that the India-born Srivastava was a fraud.

After the Project Brazen exposed Mr Srivastava and his foundation, Mr Srivasatava lodged false claims with Google and Tumblr to remove the main article exposing his deceit. The journalists protested with Google and Tumblr for falling in Mr Srivastava’s trap. Immediately after that Tumblr confirmed that it had removed several accounts and posts from its platform after its site was abused by Gaurav Srivastava. The Indian businessman used Tumblr’s backdating function to create posts that appeared to be from an earlier date, then used these posts as the basis for copyright claim to manipulate Google results for his name in order to remove the Project Brazen fraud exposé of Srivastava.

Tumblr said that the blogs and their posts were removed “for violating community guidelines” after they were used in an attempt to remove factual stories about the businessman. The complex, international fraud carried out by Srivastava is the subject of increasing media interest after other allegations about Srivastava’s history of fraud came to light.