
For the past decade, someone using the alias Michael Ross has made the rounds of the media and publishing world claiming to be a former Mossad agent. The story he told was impressive…on the surface. In the book, The Volunteer and numerous articles in pro-Israel media outlets like Canada’s National Post, he regaled readers with his tales of derring-do on behalf of the Jewish State.
His Wikipedia article, which now should be labelled fiction, presents a suitably flattering portrait:
Ross was born and raised as an Anglican in British Columbia. Following high school, he joined the Canadian Forces, and served in the since-disbanded 2nd Special Service Force at CFB Petawawa. After he was discharged, he toured Europe.
In 1982, he arrived in Israel, planning to volunteer on a kibbutz before returning to Canada. After living in Israel…Ross decided stay and convert to Judaism, and he subsequently married an Israeli woman…Ross was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces and assigned to the Combat Engineering Corps. He served in the West Bank, where his unit conducted patrols and searches for wanted terrorists and terror cells. In 1985, he was transferred to a demolitions platoon of the Golani Brigade and deployed to the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon. His unit was tasked with keeping the roads free of ambushes and IEDs. His only combat experience was when he participated in an ambush on two Hezbollah vehicles, during which eight militants were killed.
Here is how he describes his recruitment to, and service in the Mossad:
After the end of his military service, the Mossad recruited him. After repeated interviews, a medical examination and a polygraph test, he was put through an intense training program, and in 1989, he was accepted into the Mossad. As part of his preparation for service in the Mossad, Ross attended The London School of Economics. He served under a form of non-official cover, which involves working under covers other than as an Israeli diplomat and therefore lacks diplomatic immunity, a status which the Mossad refers to as “combatant.” Ross’s background and language skills gave him excellent access to sources of intelligence and the ability to travel without suspicion of being an Israeli officer.
For many years, Ross was the Mossad’s man in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although primarily a field operative, Ross also served in an official liaison position working with the American Central Intelligence Agency and FBI Counterterrorism Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2000, Ross was awarded a divisional citation by former Mossad Deputy Director and Head of the National Security Council, Ilan Mizrahi. Ross left the Mossad under honorable circumstances in late 2001 with the equivalent military rank of Sgan Aluf (Lieutenant-Colonel). He subsequently returned to Canada.
Ross’s work with the Mossad was spent almost entirely in counter-terrorism. Ross played an integral part in the investigation and subsequent joint operation with the FBI that resulted in the capture of Fawzi Mustapha Assi, a Hezbollah operative procuring weapons technology in the United States. Assi was procuring weapons material at the behest of senior Hezbollah leaders, Imad Mughniyeh and Hassan Hilu al-Lakkis.
In addition to sub-Saharan Africa, he served in the Mossad’s CAESAREA division in Syria, Azerbaijan, North Africa, and Iran. At Mossad headquarters he was involved with the TEVEL division, responsible for liaison relationships with allied governments on counter-terrorism, specifically in prevention and investigation of attacks upon embassies. Ross played an integral role in the capture of the al-Qaeda confederates responsible for the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. He later served in the Mossad’s BITZUR division, responsible for prevention of terrorist attacks upon Jewish communities worldwide. Ross assisted the escape of Jews from Zimbabwe threatened by the Robert Mugabe regime. Ross is credited with bolstering intelligence ties between Israel and Azerbaijan and the interception of two Iranian agents attempting to procure weaponry in South Africa.
Which is all very good, except that some or all of it is a fraud. For one, a Mossad agent, especially in the days before 9/11, would not have liaised with the FBI. He would only interact, if he did at all, with the CIA. While he boasts about attaining the “equivalent” rank of Lt. Col., it’s known that he resigned from the Mossad because he had a relatively low level position and was passed over for promotion (see below). So we should doubt this claim as well.
What do we really know about “Ross?” He did serve in the Mossad in some unspecified capacity. But the exploits in his biography appear largely or wholly fictional.
Ross had a nasty habit of “coming on” to female Twitter followers**. He picked attractive, conservative, articulate, high-achieving women to approach with provocative banter. He was a Twitter Lothario, a la Anthony Weiner. In the past week, Twitter users exposed Ross as a fraud. Here is one he cultivated (here and here). He bragged on his defunct Twitter account that he had attended the prestigious private school, St. Michael’s University School in Victoria, BC. Even featured pictures of himself standing before its trophy case. At SMUS, he’d supposedly befriended the future NBA star, Steve Nash and the future founder of Flickr, Stuart Butterfield. He actually attended Mount Douglas High School, a quite ordinary public high school. So much for Burrows pretensions of grandeur.
“Ross” was in reality, Michael Burrows, and he was married, which hadn’t deterred him from his Twitter-based flirtations. That didn’t sit well with those he’d flirted with.
Among the material a Twitter user tweeted was this 2005 article published by Burrows under his real name in the Canadian National Post (a pro-Israel paper formerly owned by the right-wing Asper family). This earlier version of his bio refers obliquely to his alleged Mossad service:
Michael Burrows is a Victoria-based writer. He formerly served with the office of Israel’s Prime Minister and served in both the Canadian Armed Forces and the Israel Defence Force.
Israel’s intelligence agencies, the Mossad and Shabak, are technically supervised by the office of the Prime Minister. Hence, someone who wanted to allude to intelligence service might refer to their service in this veiled way.
Jonathan Kay, an editor at National Post, where Burrows published regularly until about a year ago under the alias “Ross,” co-authored Burrows’ book, The Volunteer: A Canadian’s Secret Life in the Mossad with him. I understand that Kay is no longer featuring that credit on his CV. When I contacted Ross’s Random House editor, Doug Pepper, and queried him about the level of due diligence he’d done in vetting the material in the book before publishing, Pepper replied he was aware of the concerns expressed by myself and others, but hadn’t yet had time to look into it. I suggest that Random House may have a budding author scandal on its hands.
In this biographical reference, Burrows added several new academic degrees to his CV:
Ross is a graduate of Political Studies from Bar Ilan University and the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies and studied economics and international trade at the London School of Economics.
This Amazon review by someone with genuine intelligence experience who emphatically debunked a number of the claims in the book. Burrows’ claims about serving in Canadian Special Forces is a fraud as well, as Canadian military headquarters in Ottawa denies he served.
In a 2007 book review, Haaretz’s then intelligence correspondent, Yossi Melman, in a restrained manner debunked and downplayed many of the claims in Burrows’ book. Though he never denied that the Canadian served in Mossad, he dismissed many of Burrows claims of service and declared that he overstated his background and achievements. For example, he mentions “Ross’ real and imagined adventures.” Melman further disparages him:
Ross magnifies and glorifies his adventures and claims to have participated in operations in which it is doubtful he was involved, even on their margins. Haaretz has learned from sources who knew him in the Mossad that Ross was never in Iran…He was an operations man…in base countries (countries with which Israel has relations) and not in target countries (an Arab country or Iran).
Melman, after consulting Mossad contacts, receives this account of Burrows (whom he mistakenly calls “Jonathan”):
…People who have retired from the Mossad vaguely remember an employee of Canadian origin, Jonathan, whose operational name was Rick, who indeed was a combatant for about seven years in a base country. They tell of an individual who lacked self-confidence and did not stand out. This is supported by the fact that he remained in a junior position even after 13 years and was not promoted, which was also one of the reasons for his retirement in 2001.
All of this is somewhat ironic coming from Melman, who himself has published several books recounting Mossad derring-do in a breathless, credulous manner. Not to mention writing profiles of anti-Iran frauds, hacks and megalomaniacs like Raymond Tanter and Reza Khalili. But whatever criticism one might have of Melman, he’s certainly no fantasist as Burrows appears to be.
A former high-ranking Mossad official, Mishka Ben David, said in a Maariv interview (Hebrew) that despite the fact that he converted to Judaism, that didn’t make Burrows “one of us.” That was why Burrows could angrily blame the Mossad for betraying Ben Zygier. After writing The Volunteer, the Mossad told Burrows he was forbidden to return to Israel. If he did, he would be arrested. This seemed to be the Mossad’s way of saying: “Go away flea and stop bothering me.”
However, the Mossad too is damaged by such individuals. After all, it hired them. It in some way turned them into the person they are today. It nurtured some of the very same “skills” he uses today in his various subterfuges. Burrows’ confidence game, whether the Mossad understands this or not, reflects upon it and damages its reputation.
Another example of this sort of megalomania endangering affairs of state is the case of Yehuda Gil (Hebrew and an English language source), a former Mossad officer who may or may not have had a genuine Syrian general as an informant. The information the alleged informant proffered concerning the alleged intent of Assad to attack Israel based on Syrian troop movements in Lebanon in 1996, brought the two nations to the brink of war. The aftermath brought Gil to court and prison for his inventions. The Syrians were accused of paying Gil $200,000 for his troubles. An interesting footnote: Gil taught a special course to Mossad recruits entitled, Lying as an Art. Hmmm.
The larger problem is that the Mossad is composed of many Gils, Burrows and Zygiers. Many poseurs, charlatans and con men. In fact, one such former Mossad official has, in service to the agency, duped me into publishing at least two stories which turned out to be false (he’s no longer a source). It’s a confidence game for them.
The Mossad’s recruitment process, which has come under severe criticism in a Knesset report on the tragedy of the Australian-Israeli spy, either excuses or ignores the personality defects of such individuals. Rather, it seeks to exploit the opportunities that these candidates offer. As with Zygier, Burrows offered a fresh-faced, non-Israeli profile that would not draw undue attention. He had that extremely useful Canadian passport. The result is tragedies like what befell Zygier. In the case of Ross, no great harm was done other than his defrauding the faith of those who believed in him.
Only a few days before Twitter users outed him, the noted security blog, Blogs of War did a multi-part interview in which Burrows used all of his charm to effect a supremely confident erudite demeanor. The aftermath of all this is this post written by John Little in which he opaquely refers to his being “taken” in by Burrows. My only problem with this is that, while I understand the embarrassment one feels from having been fooled, the hoaxsters must be outed with full force, which Little didn’t do. He lets Burrows off far too easily.
I say this as someone who myself has been fooled. Not often, but once is one than enough. I find the best policy is to explain what happened and why, and not mince words.
Just as Twitter users were cutting up Michael “Ross” and serving him for dinner in their Twitter feed, he closed his Twitter account (shades of Anthony Weiner). Though it’s doubtful you can keep a con man down for long. Expect him to reappear somewhere else like mushrooms after a spring rain.
NOTE: **A Twitter user who, in my judgment, played an important role in outing Burrows, after sharing a great deal of her research on the subject in multiple e-mails, has threatened me with legal action if I associate her name with the first phrase of this sentence. But the role she played and judgments other Twitter users already published about her role are freely, publicly available online. In this case, discretion is the better part of avoiding lawsuits, frivolous or otherwise.
Excellent and comprehensive piece! So what is Burrow’s problem? He felt betrayed or he is just a lying narcissist?
I would always assume that a source from an intelligence agency was lying most of the time, either on orders or just to see if the journalist would take the bait. I’m sorry you were made the Mossad’s catspaw, Mr. Silverstein.
So Michael Burrows worked as “Rick” and his fake surname was “Ross.” Somebody is pulling somebody’s leg.
I noticed that as well. Pretty funny if that was in Burrows’ mind when he created his mock identity. It also goes with the sexual exploitation motif!
It’s too bad ZohansLetters account got shuttered. He put out some funny stuff.
https://twitter.com/rachelmarsden/status/344180020698312704
Sorry, that account is locked so unless you were a follower you can see the image in the tweet:
pic.twitter.com/nh7rnl1Zhv
Studying at the LSE is preparation for life undercover? As what?
I’ve had a look at his wikipedia page, and there’s elements of this which look like other, similar, frauds.
This website is a good resource for any victims who find that they have been horribly deceived, either in the financial or social/sexual sense, by pathological liars just like this:
http://www.lovefraud.com/
I can guarantee that there will be victims, but that they will find it even harder to tell anyone about it than rape victims do. Pathological liars are the most sadistic of all psychopaths, and no-one goes to these kind of lengths if they are not a pathological liar.
It’s not spinning a yarn, it’s creating and sustaining a completely false personality and history over a period of years. Contact with a similar personality cost me a lotl of money (culprit’s current address is Exeter Jail) but others have paid the price in other, more intimate, ways.
In recent years, there have been at least five bogus MI5 or MI6 officers jailed in the UK: one of them, when challenged about his lack of credentials, managed to get the staff of a Cambridgeshire police station to help him prepare a false warrant card!
Another managed to recruit a group of half a dozen ordinary citizens who lived with him “undercover” for a period of YEARS, even committing thefts and robberies to finance his “operation” after he managed to persuade them (none of them knew each other beforehand) that they were all on an IRA hitlist.
They are not compelled to tell plausible lies: they are compelled to force victims to believe something so patently nonsensical that it’s soul-destroying to admit afterwards that they ever believed it. (Studies at the LSE to be a spy…) But while they were in contact with the pathological liar, they found it impossible not to. It is psychological violence. The reason victims believe the lies, is because the victim’s subconscious realizes that there will be serious and terrible violence if the bluff is called, so it pulls out all the stops to prevent the conscious mind calling the bluff. This is why some of the victims will only be able to admit they were deceived, AFTER the liar is locked up.
I know of one victim of a pathological liar who confessed to murder rather than risk triggering the rage of the real killer, and pathological liar, Christopher Beales. It was only when Beales died, that his victim felt able to withdraw the confession (he may have convinced himself that he really did kill the deceased) and by that point, the Home Office wasn’t willing or able to understand. Persons “in Denial Of Murder” are never released, even when their normal life-sentence tariff is reached, so withdrawing the confession has done him the opposite of good. DOM might as well be doom as far as the Home Office is concerned.
This isn’t just a prank, or a bit of vanity, or even an attempt to get money. This man will be a serious danger to those he manages to entrap, and that may include quite prominent people, even newspaper editors -and senior policemen are not immune to the effect. It’s not going to be very safe for Richard in the next few days, either.
Anyone know a professional expert in facial comparison, vis a vis the photo above and these:
http://www.starnow.co.uk/markross
http://www.markross.co.uk/page_2615480.html
I am NOT completely sure, but there’s something about both websites which triggers a lot of memories of con-men, supposedly in the British film industry. Not least .co.uk sites which are actually hosted in New Zealand. And a CV which starts in 2004…
I went to high school with the “Michael Ross” in question in Victoria, BC and I was even in classes with him back in the late 70’s… I also saw him at our 30th HS reunion just a few yrs back… I therefore know his “real name” so I can definitively say that “no, he is not the same man as the one whose UK pics are at the end of the links above… different people… he still looks like an older version of his teen self… if he was always fascinated by one thing it was history and the military… we were in History 12 together and back then WWII, the Cold War etc etc were a part of that course outline… we had a great teacher… I got an A and Mike probably did too; I never asked, haha… and yes, he was Anglican back then, from a nice Anglo family… which is oh, so typical of laid back Victoria, BC….
Cheers
I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Burrows is his real name. In fact, he’s sent me an e mail using this name. Nor has he disputed that the image to which I linked from a BC Marathon is a picture of him.
Hmmm… wow… you really believe that? … well, my pics from my fairly recent HS reunion say that the man in the pic from the marathon are one and the same… he is also the same “Mike” with whom I attended HS and with whom I was friends on FB and where I saw more pics – until one day he suddenly cancelled his FB page out of the blue… and his name in HS wasn’t Michael Ross Burrows… the 1st name is the same, but my HS yearbook’s pics say the last name is otherwise, and the same goes for the last name of the rest of his Victoria family… perhaps he changed it legally down the road… but seeing as you seem to have had some very “odd” dealings with him, why would you be surprised that Burrows isn’t his original family name… he probably wouldn’t want anything traced back to where he lives or to his extended family… and in order to verify his earlier life, you’d likely have to know his real name, no?… I do know that he is married with a 2nd family and his 1st family & 2 boys & ex from his 1st Israeli marriage are still back there… and I can probably make some very good educated guesses where he actually lives now etc – given what I gathered while we were friends on FB etc etc… but you can believe me or not… I’m reasonably astute, and reasonably geo-political, and I learned a lot about him while a FB friend who hadn’t seen him since HS… he could be very entertaining, funny and superficial… but his politics did get on my nerves at times… I am not here to defend him… but I also don’t doubt him when he says that he has/had some mental illness episodes, or issues at the very least in his past/ present… there’s no shame in that… what he did have, though, that was annoying, was certainly a need to feel important, superior, adored on FB… and lo and behold there was an endless line up of women chiming in whom he charmed… and charming he was… but he also behaved like an arrogant a-hole and a condescending SOB to otherwise nice, apolitical FB friends when a joke or reference went over their head… sadly, he seemed to enjoy that superior feeling a little too much… and his politics were too hawkish, but I’ve already said that… but who am I to say or judge….
I can’t say much about what his name might’ve been when you were in high school. Nor did I know anything about any mental health issues he had. If you can produce any written record of any sort of him discussing this, I’d be very interested. But as you said, if he did have such a past it’s not very significant, except that the Mossad knowingly recruiting agents with such issues IS an interesting phenomenon.
I’d be interested if privately you might be willing to share what you think his original family name was. But if not, no matter.
I agree with you that he is an extremely arrogant, mean-spirited, even cruel person. In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d say he had a bit of the sadist in him. He clearly enjoyed savaging people verbally.
All this was one of the reasons I was motivated to research & write these posts about him–aside from his professional past and his politics.
“However, the Mossad too is damaged by such individuals. After all, it hired them. It in some way turned them into the person they are today. It nurtured some of the very same “skills” he uses today in his various subterfuges. Burrows’ confidence game, whether the Mossad understands this or not, reflects upon it and damages its reputation.”
I don’t think Intelligence agencies care about their reputations outside of government circles…..I also don’t think things have changed much in HUMINT (i.e. “human Intelligence” or spies); they need people they can use and lose, so they will always be hiring slightly shady people who will become even shadier after the organization trains them. Mossad hired Burrows because they needed a European/American-looking guy for a job; they dropped him because he lied too much.
It should be said that what happened with “Rick Ross” has happened time and again. Take his book, for example; in 2001 a man calling himself Tom Carew wrote a book called “Jihad! The Secret War in Afghanistan” claiming to be the memoirs of an SAS soldier during the Soviet-mujaheddin war. Not a word of truth; “Tom Carew” was really Phillip Sessarego, an ex-Royal Artilleryman who failed joining the Special Air Service twice. If Burrows is lucky he might avoid Sessarego’s fate, being found dead in a Belgian garage/either a suicide or murdered by former or serving SAS men to “settle scores.”
“Ross” is an imposter. But why is it so important? What’s the big deal? Is “Ross” the only Zionist imposter? What about Netanyahu?
If you don’t post this and delete my earlier posts I’ll send you a pic of him from our Mt Doug yearbook that shows his name & a pic from the reunion so that you can see that it’s him… I’ll need an email address… Lord only knows what is going on here & with him, maybe you can enlighten me in private too… this truly is too bizarre for words… I know nothing of this twitter business or these women and what happened with them… I came across your blog by accident doing some personal research on the Somalia Affair – the 1993 military scandal and the Canadian Airborne Regiment… somewhere, perhaps erroneously, I recalled that Mike was in that regiment practically out of HS, so, afterwards, out of curiosity, I ended up googling what I considered was his pen name “Ross” to see what he had written for the Post of late etc… and I came upon you… anyway, to me this is all rather like a sick & twisted new chapter in his life… he didn’t seem to have a tawdry relationship with his ex & teenage sons just 3-4 yrs ago… but I guess everything can change on a dime… I was well aware of his having a 2nd/new wife while we were FB friends, though she wasn’t at the HS reunion… everyone who knew his 2nd wife referred to her as a “rock star” on FB and she WAS gorgeous… I saw pics… I lost track of him after he suddenly closed his FB account… I have an old email address somewhere which I used a couple of times a long time ago… there was never any malice in our friendship, acquaintance more likely… and actually, the mental health issues were said to be in the range of depression, PTSD… after his self-described yrs of Mossad work abroad… not before… they WOULD be entirely plausible in anyone with any long term military/ intelligence/ field work tenure as he says he has had in his book… I did read his book and that is where he admits these conditions/ mental health issues, if I am not mistaken… it’s all apparently post Mossad work… and it would also apply to individuals whose relationships break down… that is just a human frailty to which we are all potentially vulnerable… in any event, his 2nd wife, to whom he dedicated much, has apparently been his rock and way back to health… if I recall correctly… I read it yrs ago… and we had some in-box conversations on FB too… he found enormous comfort in the companionship of his dog – which is very healthy for anyone recovering from any kind of breakdown or trauma… if we are to believe any of the book or his bio, be it due to the strains of the type of work he had with the Mossad, or a poor marriage or a combination or other factors, it is their story alone… I believe in the book he explains some of this as well… anyway, if you want the pics with the name… just delete all this please and send me an email address… I only wish that I could understand what on earth is going on here….