A businessman accused in civil court of pretending to be a CIA agent reportedly wined and dined Indonesia's current president, secured preliminary government agreements worth tens of billions of dollars in fighter jets and military hardware, and allegedly walked away with $25 million of someone else's loan to buy himself a Los Angeles mansion. According to investigative reporting by OCCRP and its Indonesian partner Tempo, none of the weapons deals ever actually closed. The mansion, however, is very real.
Meet Gaurav Srivastava, Defense Procurement Visionary (Allegedly Not)
Here's the thing about shell companies: they tend to have very little inside them. OCCRP and Tempo report that the four companies controlled by businessman Gaurav Srivastava that secured five preliminary defense agreements with the Indonesian government were shell companies with zero experience in defense procurement. All four have since been deregistered for failing to pay taxes.
And yet, between 2020 and 2022, Srivastava's companies racked up letters of intent covering 36 F-15 fighter jets, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, C-130 transport planes, and a joint operations command and control center. In 2022, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced approval for a potential F-15 sale worth $13.9 billion. The DSCA announcement did not mention Srivastava or his companies by name.
Srivastava did not respond to requests for comment from OCCRP or Tempo. On his website, he describes accusations that he posed as a CIA agent as 'gross fabrications' spread by a former business partner. That former business partner, for what it's worth, has recorded phone calls he says prove otherwise.
The CIA Bit Is Where It Gets Really Good
The former business partner in question is Niels Troost, who has filed civil lawsuits against Srivastava in California and the Southern District of New York. Troost was himself sanctioned by the U.K., the European Union, and Switzerland for trading Russian oil, though the EU and Swiss sanctions have since been lifted.
According to OCCRP's reporting on the legal complaints, Troost says he was convinced Srivastava was a genuine, well-connected CIA operative, and on that basis handed over 50 percent of his company. The legal filings reference recorded phone calls in which Srivastava allegedly claimed to work for the agency. Troost's California complaint describes him as a 'brazen con man of remarkable skill,' which, if true, is honestly the most backhanded compliment in the history of civil litigation.
Srivastava, for his part, has accused Troost on his website of running 'an aggressive, scortched-earth disinformation campaign' — the typo is his, not ours — which began with legal complaints filed in the U.S., Switzerland, and the UAE. So we have one man calling the other a con man, and that man calling the first man a disinformation machine. The courts will sort it out. Eventually.
From the Presidential Inner Circle to a $25M Mansion
Srivastava was not operating from the outside looking in. OCCRP reports that he joined Prabowo Subianto, then Indonesia's defense minister and now its president, at high-level meetings in both Washington D.C. and Jakarta in 2020, where military procurement was discussed. He appears in photographs at the Indonesian Embassy in Washington alongside Prabowo and colleagues. Troost claims Srivastava told him he visited and stayed frequently at Prabowo's homes during this period.
Prabowo did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Srivastava also cultivated a relationship with Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo's brother and chairman of the Arsari Group. According to Troost's legal complaint, Srivastava orchestrated a $51 million loan from their jointly held company to the Arsari Group, telling Troost the money would fund a covert U.S. government program. He then allegedly convinced Arsari to transfer nearly half the loan directly to him. That money, the complaint says, went toward a $25 million mansion in Los Angeles. Srivastava apparently tried to get the rest of the loan transferred to himself as well, but Arsari Group refused. Hashim did not respond to requests for comment.
The Indonesian Government's Official Position: Nothing to See Here
Indonesia's Defense Ministry confirmed the preliminary agreements existed but was quick to stress they were not binding contracts. Spokesperson Rico Sirait told Tempo that 'the entire process of Indonesian defense cooperation and procurement is always carried out with utmost caution, prioritizing the principles of good governance, national interest, and compliance with applicable mechanisms and regulations.'
That statement is doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting over a very large pothole.
Indonesia's money laundering authority told Tempo it is investigating the $51 million loan transaction, and that if it finds evidence of wrongdoing it will refer the matter to law enforcement. That's a cautious formulation, but it's something. Whether an investigation with that kind of institutional mandate moves with any urgency, given that the current president is one of the central figures named in the reporting, is a question worth keeping in mind.
The Dingo Take
Let's just hold this story up to the light for a second. A man allegedly pretended to work for the CIA. Using that alleged pretense, he gained access to a sitting defense minister who is now a head of state. He secured preliminary agreements for nearly $14 billion in U.S. fighter jets through companies that didn't pay their taxes and no longer exist. He then allegedly funneled $25 million of a loan meant to fund a 'covert U.S. government program' into a Los Angeles mansion. And the official response from the Indonesian government is basically: the agreements were non-binding, so let's all calm down.
The 'non-binding' defense is technically accurate and completely beside the point. The question isn't whether Indonesia ended up owning F-15s it can't account for. The question is how a man with allegedly no intelligence credentials, no actual defense procurement experience, and a business portfolio of empty shell companies managed to get photographed at the Indonesian Embassy next to the future president, walk out with letters of intent for tens of billions in hardware, and potentially launder $25 million through a real estate purchase in California. That's not a paperwork problem. That's a catastrophic failure of due diligence at the highest levels of a government.
The OCCRP and Tempo reporting here is meticulous and damning. The Indonesian money laundering authority says it's looking into things. The civil courts in California and New York have active cases. Whether any of this results in accountability for anyone above the pay grade of 'alleged con man' is the story to watch. History suggests: don't hold your breath.
