After chatting online, it’s FBI undercover Special Agent Scott Payne's first in-person meeting with The Base. Alone. Now he just needs to convince the international neo-Nazi network that he's one of them.To hear all episodes of White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse right now, ad-free, subscribe to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple Podcasts.
Chapter 1: What are the main themes introduced in this episode?
While there are plenty of toxic social media personalities, few are as vicious and influential as Andrew Tate. Online, he brags about being a misogynist, and his videos have been viewed billions of times. Now Tate and his brother are under investigation for human trafficking.
I'm Kathleen Goltar, and this week on Crime Story, I speak with two journalists who spent four years inside Andrew Tate's manosphere. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts.
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The following episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence. Please take care when listening.
Uh, okay. So let me start with the bass.
All right.
Ah, what a great group of guys.
Okay, so... Let me introduce you to Scott. He's 6'4", 260, likes cowboy boots and Jack Daniels. And in the summer of 2019, he wanted to join a group of white supremacists. They called themselves The Base. And Scott had already passed a crucial phone interview.
That Saturday, they reached out to me and said, Said, hey, we'd like to have you in the base. And I said, awesome, I'd love to be here. So he says, you're going to be contacted by your closest cell leader. And it turned out that the closest cell leader was a guy going by the name of the militant Buddhist, TMB. And he was in Rome, Georgia. Now we're not emailing. Now we're not texting.
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Chapter 2: Who is Special Agent Scott Payne?
It was Patrick Matthews using the brand new call sign, Punished Snake, like it was an added disguise while on the lam.
And I'm like, oh my goodness, he's here. He's here in Georgia. But, you know, being an undercover, I go, holy shit, man. Welcome to the United States, brother. And I hug him.
There's this huge manhunt on for him. Everybody's talking about it in the FBI. And all of a sudden you roll up and you're like, holy shit, that's him. That's Matthews. Like, what did you feel at that moment?
It hadn't even been reported in Congress. They had congressional meetings where they're going, we now know that there is a violent white supremacist from Canada who's somewhere in the United States, you know? And I walk up and I go, oh my gosh, what are the odds, you know?
Just Matthew's luck, he escaped the clutches of Canadian authorities, only to jump right into the arms of the FBI.
As some people say, it's better to be lucky than good sometimes, right? And of course, as soon as I could, I let the case team know. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, man, he's here. It's awesome. And now he's staying here. So now, for the next whatever, four months, every time I go to training in Georgia, I'm hanging out with Pat.
In the fall of 2001, while Americans were still grappling with the horror of September 11th, envelopes started showing up at media outlets and government buildings filled with a white lethal powder, anthrax. But what's strange is if you ask people now what happened with that story, almost no one knows. It's like the whole thing just disappeared. Who mailed those letters? Do you know?
From Wolf Entertainment, USG Audio, and CBC Podcasts, this is Aftermath, the hunt for the anthrax killer. Available now.
Scott spends months undercover as Pale Horse with Patrick Matthews and the Georgia Cell, training, hiking, and listening as they discuss their plans. And he's recording everything.
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Chapter 3: How did Special Agent Scott Payne infiltrate The Base?
Well, yeah. Yeah, I just figured he was going through a little phase.
Remember when I told you, when we first met, I said I'd heard that podcast and I was cussing at the computer while it was going on. I'm like, that dude is lying.
That's the crazy thing. All the time we were reporting and wondering about this Scott, he was listening, wanting to talk to us.
Yeah, so he knew it was a Nazi flag. I mean, I've sat on the porch of that guy and drank. I drank his alcohol. He drank mine. He's listened to pestilence. My educated opinion. He's saying that because he's on a call. He didn't want to tie himself to anything nefarious. He knows exactly what a swastika is. He knows exactly.
Now, to think that your kid's going through a phase to find out what's what, okay. How long do you want the phase to last? Two years? Four years? Six years? What's a phase?
But you know, Tom Lane making excuses for his son didn't really surprise Scott.
In law enforcement, I have really, really seen a parent's love. What I mean by that is, I can show you a video of your kid doing crime. On camera, their voice, them, the parent will still say, that's not my kid. I still love my kid. And that's what parents do.
What Scott says he doesn't have time for are accusations of entrapment, which seemed to be Tom Lane's explanation at the time for why his son was sitting in jail awaiting trial.
I feel like the FBI implant kind of led them in that direction. Certainly he didn't do anything to deter it. These were young guys, like 19, 20 years old. And I think they pretty much just took advantage of their youth. I don't know that the base wasn't created by the FBI. I don't much trust anything they do.
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