Shocked, sur­prised and stunned.

That’s how neigh­bours of Mal­abar Pas­tor Ian Al­bert Ezekiel Brown de­scribed his con­fes­sion of be­ing a spy for the coun­try’s main in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing agency the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Yes­ter­day, while Brown’s neigh­bours were amazed by his spy link to the SSA, he told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a brief tele­phone in­ter­view that he was Is­raeli-trained and the own­er of 11 SIM cards and sev­en phones.

He, how­ev­er, de­clined a face-to-face in­ter­view.

On Sat­ur­day, po­lice raid­ed Brown’s Ari­ma home at Ale­on Street and his church­es—Jerusalem Bride (JB Church) in Mal­abar, Ari­ma, and the Eden Re­stored Church in Caratal.

Hours af­ter the raid, Brown, 67, said he was known as “The Phan­tom” and “the ghost” who walks in the SSA.

As a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Of­fi­cer Brown said, he used a rental car paid for by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to do his “spy work”.

He claimed he was brought in to weed out crooks in the SSA.

On May 25, 2023, Brown claimed, he came on the SSA pay­roll as a ser­vice provider. He claimed that he al­so used a wig to dis­guise his ap­pear­ance.

His task was to deal with cor­rup­tion as it re­lates to SSA and even sat in high-lev­el na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty meet­ings and had ac­cess to sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion.

Brown al­so ad­mit­ted that mem­bers of his church were em­ployed in the SSA, among them his son.

His con­fes­sion came days af­ter SSA di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best, who Brown said was one of nine el­ders in the church, was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

It was claimed that Best was sent on leave over ques­tion­able re­cruit­ment of spe­cif­ic in­di­vid­u­als with­in the SSA.

Dur­ing a vis­it to Brown’s com­mu­ni­ty, many of his neigh­bours, ex­cept for two men, de­scribed the pas­tor as a good man.

They al­so spoke about Brown’s broth­er Ter­ry Brown of Nel­son Street, Ari­ma, be­ing gunned down two years ago in Ari­ma.

They could not say what led to Brown’s killing, stat­ing that as far as they knew no one was ar­rest­ed for the mur­der.

A ‘re­spectable gen­tle­man’

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Ari­ma Cen­tral coun­cil­lor Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia who lives be­hind Brown, had on­ly good things to say about the man of the cloth.

“He is a very re­spectable gen­tle­man in the neigh­bour­hood. Brown grew up in a church life and I don’t know him of do­ing any wrong. He nev­er found him­self on the wrong side of the law,” Gar­cia said.

Daryl Wil­son, who op­er­ates his Wil­son Au­to Tech busi­ness op­po­site Brown’s home, said all his life, “I know Mr Brown and he’s a good man.”

Asked how he felt about Brown be­ing a spy, Wil­son said that left him stunned.

“That one shocked me be­cause we knew him as a pas­tor. I am not against any­one do­ing what they have to, but I was a bit tak­en aback. I was lost for words. I nev­er saw him as a bad per­son,” he said.

Wil­son said Brown pro­vid­ed coun­selling ser­vices to his flock and mem­bers of his com­mu­ni­ty.

“I am not sure if he went in­to the SSA as a coun­sel­lor and things went a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent.”

Wil­son re­mem­bered see­ing Brown wear­ing his “wig” many times to dis­guise him­self.

This was done in the pres­ence of mem­bers of his flock at his home.

“We have seen him with the wig in his hand with the oth­er church mem­bers lim­ing and talk­ing.”

When GML ap­proached Brown’s home, his gate was locked just like the doors to his Mal­abar church.

A man stand­ing on the ve­ran­dah of a small house sit­u­at­ed in the same com­pound of Brown’s tow­er­ing prop­er­ty iden­ti­fied him­self on­ly as his el­der broth­er.

He could not say if Brown was at home and in­sist­ed he could not come out­side to check if he was home be­cause of some pit bulls roam­ing the yard.

Asked what he thought about his broth­er’s in­volve­ment in SSA, he replied “I on­ly have thoughts a broth­er would have for a broth­er which is love. I read the sto­ry like every­body else.”

A stone’s throw away from Brown’s home, a shop­keep­er who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty stat­ed that he was “sur­prised” like the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty to find out that Brown had been a spy.

“What?...I was shocked!”

How­ev­er, the shop­keep­er said he had known Brown all his life and held him in high es­teem and re­gard.

Res­i­dent Vaughn Ed­wards claimed he was at­tacked by Brown’s pit bulls in Jan­u­ary which he failed to ad­dress or speak to him about.

Ed­wards said if he had not jumped on a van, he would have been mauled to death.

“Since the dog at­tacked me I nev­er see none of them,” Ed­wards in­sist­ed.

A Guardian Me­dia team al­so trav­elled to Brown’s Eden Re­stored Church in Caratal, but we could not get close to the place of wor­ship as a chain was draped across the un­paved road stop­ping us in our tracks.