Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell's Father, Alleged Spy For Israel, UK And Russia

NDTV

24-07-2025

He sold textbooks to American schools. He mingled with kings, queens, presidents, and popes. And behind the scenes, he may have helped one of the world's most secretive intelligence agencies spy on half the globe.
This is the story of Robert Maxwell, British media tycoon, alleged triple agent, and father of Ghislaine Maxwell.
To some, he was a visionary; to others, a fraudster. To his daughter Ghislaine, whose later life became entangled with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, he was the one who opened the gates of high society and perhaps, unwittingly, the road to ruin.
Born into poverty as a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia, Robert Maxwell rose to become a British media tycoon whose empire rivalled Rupert Murdoch's. He founded Pergamon Press, an academic publishing house, supplying history and science textbooks across US schools. They were often criticised for promoting pro-Israel narratives aligned with Maxwell's staunch Zionism.
In 1984, he acquired the Daily Mirror, transforming it into a tabloid behemoth. At his peak, he controlled Maxwell Communication Corp, Macmillan, Pergamon, and a fleet of global publications. His daughter Ghislaine was his golden child. She was educated at Oxford, polished for high society, and his frequent companion at events from London to New York.
He was seen hobnobbing with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher, and even Mother Teresa. Photos also captured him beside US Presidents George W Bush and Donald Trump.
Multiple sources report that UK Foreign Office suspected Maxwell as a double or triple agent, with ties to MI6, the Soviet KGB, and Israeli intelligence Mossad.
Robert Maxwell moved between the White House, the Kremlin, Downing Street, and the leadership of France, Germany, and Israel.
In the 1960s, he served two terms as a Labour MP for Buckingham while living a lavish lifestyle. At his Oxford estate, Headington Hall, he hosted extravagant parties that were rumoured to be used as honey traps to gather compromising information on powerful figures.
Perhaps the most damning allegations link him to the PROMIS software scandal. Originally a US Department of Justice case management tool, PROMIS was allegedly stolen, doctored with an Israeli backdoor, and distributed to dozens of foreign intelligence agencies, militaries, and corporations, allowing Israel to spy on virtually every country that used it.
Robert Maxwell, according to several whistleblowers including former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe, was the global salesman of this digital Trojan horse.
Maxwell's final years were plagued by financial ruin. Following his death, investigators found a 460 million Pounds black hole in the Mirror Group pension fund. He siphoned off his own employees' retirement savings to prop up his debt-ridden empire. His sons, Ian and Kevin Maxwell, were arrested and charged with fraud (though later acquitted), and the British public raged over the betrayal of thousands of pensioners.
Maxwell went from magnate to villain overnight. Protestors called him "Robber Bob."
On November 5, 1991, Maxwell disappeared from his 180-foot yacht off the Canary Islands. He was found dead hours later, floating face up in the ocean. Officially, it was a heart attack and accidental drowning. His daughter believed he was murdered.
An autopsy revealed that Maxwell had been suffering from serious heart and lung conditions at the time of his death.
He was given a state funeral in Israel, attended by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and multiple intelligence officials.