How to spot red flags when dealing with business partners
Gaurav and Zach discuss the red flags they each missed in former business partners and associates. All the signs were there - but they were dismissed or excused. Only in retrospect were the dots connected - but it was already too late. Watch the full interview here.
The cognitive bias which influenced the mainstream media reporting
In this excerpt of the first part of Gaurav’s interview on Targeted, host Zach Abramowitz and Victoria Katoka discuss the cognitive bias which was built-in to the story by the time it had reached mainstream media such as the FT and WSJ. The shiny, sexy story which Niles Troost had to tell made for compelling reading.
As Victoria says “It is masterful, it is extremely well resourced… The animous and the resources brought to bear to do this were extraordinary, and terrifying!”
Zach “Terrifying is right. The WSJ and FT articles seem so one-sided and skewed - when I go back and look at the article I’m like ‘How in writing this are they not seeing this?’ And as you pointed out it’s not you’re talking about some saint here. We’re talking about someone [Niels Troost] who is trading in Russian oil ata time when Russia must be the most unpopular country in the West.”
The stepping stone to mainstream media
The fake news articles needed a stepping stone to whitewash the lies and graduate into mainstream media to defame Gaurav Sribastava. In Gaurav’s case this a former wsj journalist whp icked up the story in his blog.
Niels Troost sets off Gaurav's "spidey senses"
After the deal between Gaurav Srivastava and Niels Troost closed, Gaurav is kept in the dark as to what the company he is now a part owner of is doing. As it starts to dawn on Gaurav that Troost's people are trying to hide something, his spidey senses tell him something is going on behind his back - and he orders an audit of the company.
Niels Troost has previously accused a former business partner of being a fake spy - is this his m.o.?
Host Zach Abramowitz coaxes out of Gaurav Srivastava the first red flag in his relationship with Niels Troost: Niels Troost has accused other past business partners of his of being... Fake spies! In a memo sent by Niels Troost to Gaurav Srivastava, Troost tells Gaurav of "Mr. K." who claimed he was a Special Agent working for the CIA and that he had very strong connections to "The Agency" in the U.S.
The targeting of Gaurav Srivastava
Intro of episode 4 of @TargetedPodcast tells the story of "one of the most complex and aggressive smear campaigns" host Zach Abramowitz has ever seen. Practically overnight, Gaurav Srivastava found himself in the center of a coordinated effort to ruin his career, his reputation and even his family's standing in their own community. This story is about how a business dispute escalated into a full blown reputation war - one of the world's premier traders of Russian oil who has since been sanctioned by the UK, the EU and Switzerland for violating Russian sanctions. Together, Niels Troost and Gaurav Srivastava planned to restructure Paramount's energy & commodity business, shifting its focus away from Russian oil, which was now being heavily sanctioned by the West, into new markets. But things quickly fell apart. In early 2023, Gaurav and his team discovered financial irregularities including asset transfers that were unaccounted for, undisclosed business dealings, and evidence Russian oil trade were still happening, despite the sanctions.