The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - How an Undercover FBI Agent Exposed America's Hate Groups

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Imagine being in the backwoods of Georgia with a group of neo-Nazis slaughtering a goat and drinking its blood. For Scott Payne, he doesn't have to imagine it; he lived it. He's a former undercover FBI agent, and in his new book, written with veteran journalist Michelle Shephard, he chronicles his time exposing some of America's most dangerous extremist groups. The book is called "Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis." Scott Payne and Michelle Shephard join Jeyan Jeganathan to discuss the book and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was like a father figure to me. Unfortunately, found myself in a very vulnerable position. This is a story about a psychiatrist in Toronto accused of abusing two of his patients, which he denies. It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today wherever you listen. for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit TDO.me slash twenty twenty-five donate to renew your support or

make a first time donation and continue to discover your two-point TDO. Imagine being in the backwoods of Georgia with a group of neo-Nazis slaughtering a goat and drinking its blood. For Scott Payne, he doesn't have to imagine it, he lived it. He's a former undercover FBI agent and in his new book, written with veteran journalist Michelle Sheppard, he chronicles his time exposing some of America's most dangerous extremist groups. The book is called Codename, Pale Horse, How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis. And Scott Payne and Michelle Sheppard join us now for more.

Welcome to our studios. And Scott Payne, thank you so much for joining us on the line. Scott, I'm going to start with you. There's a moment in each person's life when they decide what they want to be, whether it's an astronaut, a doctor, a nurse. If they're crazy, they'll think about being a journalist. If they're even crazier, they might think about becoming an FBI agent, an undercover one at that. When did you first realize you wanted to become an undercover FBI agent?

It really started with just getting into law enforcement. I went to college and once I took an elective in a criminal justice course, that resonated with me heavily. I was already bouncing and getting some kind of local trainings with law enforcement. Once I became a cop, after three years I became a vice narcotics investigator and that's when I was able to get certified by the state of South Carolina in undercover techniques.

And that's when I started getting the bug, going out and doing my first undercover. And after that, the rest is history. I don't want to date it, but we do have a photo of you. This is you as a beat cop here in Grenville. Michelle, you didn't know Scott, obviously, during any of this time. I'm curious, how did you first hear about Scott? It was actually during a project that I did, a podcast with CBC, about a group that was called The Base.

It was a neo-Nazi group and we did a series about the members of that group. There was a Canadian member that was part of the armed forces that was part of it. And basically the podcast was about investigation and we knew that during that investigation there was an undercover officer. But we had no idea who he was. We heard his voice sometimes in the court exhibits. One of the fathers of someone that we interviewed, whose son had been arrested, he had met him. So he said, I think this guy's name was Scott. I'm doing a terrible Southern accent there, sorry.

So at that point, anyway, the podcast series goes. A few months later, we see this Rolling Stone article about an undercover agent who had been 28 years with the FBI, just retired. And the producer I was working with looks at him, and she's like, that's our Scott. That's the guy who had been undercover in the case. So I reached out thinking we'd just do a bonus episode

for the podcast. But once you meet Scott and you start hearing his stories, that turned into a whole other podcast series, and then this book. All right, well, we have a photo of you two working together. This is both of you hard at work on the book as well. Scott, you decided to work together on the podcast and the book.

I'm curious, why did you want to share that story? podcast and the book. I'm curious, why did you want to share that story? You know, I really didn't want to in the beginning. I can imagine someone who, you know, for the most part, you live a private life. I didn't. I'm somewhat of a big splash kind of person, boisterous personality, but it all kind of parlayed off of the Rolling Stones article. I just had friends in the entertainment industry, and I thought maybe being a consultant or helping with the show, and then the Rolling Stones article happened. And after that, the journalist of that article, Paul Solitarev,

was hounding me about literary agents reaching out to him. And I ended up talking to Brooklyn Literary and went with them. And then that's when we started interviewing possible co-writers and that's when I met Michelle. All right, Michelle, I'm curious. What was like first meeting Scott? Oh, it was great.

We had a Zoom call and he actually hadn't put two and two together right away. That he had actually listened to the series we did called White Hot Hate. He was still in recover at the time or it was just near the end of his career. And so he had actually listened to the series we did called White Hot Hate. He was still in recover at the time, or it was just near the end of his career. And so he had listened to that because people had kept sending it to him,

saying this is about you. I obviously knew the connection, but we get on this Zoom call and about, I don't know, like a few minutes into it, he suddenly says, you're White Hot Hate. Just like, yeah, not exactly the nickname I would love. But, and we put together, and we kind of just sort of hit it off. White Hot Hate. It's like, yeah, not exactly the nickname I would love. And we put it together and we kind of just sort of hit it off.

But it was a really different project for me. I mean, long-time journalists usually write about people like Scott. I don't write with them. You never get this kind of access. So it was like a very... And we're completely different people if you haven't guessed. So I always would tease him because I would say, you know, when you thought about someone, you know,

capturing your voice and helping you write your memoir, you thought of, you know, the agnostic liberal journalist, Canadian journalist, whereas Scott is sort of my opposite in many, many ways. Which made the project really interesting, actually. All right, Scott, Michelle teased a little bit about it, about the base itself. I'm hoping you can sort of explain who are they? Well, they're mostly defunct now, thankfully, but the belief system is still out there.

It is a relatively newer movement called accelerationism. The movement idea, the ideology was around in the 80s, but they didn't call it accelerationism. And what essentially it is, is it's this different type of far right extremism, neo-Nazi. They don't believe there's a political solution to save the white race. They believe that society is going to collapse on its own or for man-made events, and they want to speed that up. And even though the base is pretty much defunct, the leader, Renando de Zara, is still out there trying to gain some attention and recruit people, but the ideology is still there. As you've seen with recent attacks and you hear of groups like Order of Nine Angles, that is just another level of accelerationism

with satanic beliefs tied to it. What was your first impression when you first met them? It's different than what I usually do with my skill set, but I was kind of in work mode. So you don't, I'm just more thinking about the case and gathering intelligence, but it was a little bit shocking and surprising to me that you had 19-year-olds, 21-year-olds, even older than that, that didn't have a car, didn't have a job, but had an arsenal in their closet.

We're meeting at least on an average maybe monthly to train in firearms and tactics to prepare for the collapse of society and to speed it up. Michelle, I want to pick up on some of that. What are some of the takeaways for you when you hear about these young men, some Canadian, about what's happening sort of in our society right now? It's really frightening. I mean, I covered terrorism for years. I was with the Toronto Star for many years, foreign correspondent, covered 9-11 and the fallout from that, and covered terrorist groups around the world. But this and neo-Nazi groups have always been around,

of course. But as Scott said, there's been this real rise in these groups that call themselves accelerationists. To me, it was really shocking hearing his stories, hearing the recordings of these young men, the level of anger and victimhood that these groups and these young men that they feel. What are they angry about?

Everything. I think they feel that society is not fair to them. They feel that the white race is being wiped out. I mean it's some fairly traditional white supremacist views. Scott can probably speak more on that about you know exactly their belief system. But what I did find when looking at these groups, when I compared to the other groups that I covered over the years any of the Al Qaeda groups the affiliates around the world violent extremism is the same wherever wherever you go the their victims are different the people they're against are different

but if essentially at its core it's you know the the othering of people the the hatred and wanting to use violence to create a new world order. It really is kind of incredibly all the manifestos I've read from various groups, they have the same kind of similar language. Interesting. Scott, can you pick up on a little bit of that in terms of what you're seeing? Sure. I like to kind of push it like this, and it goes right along with what Michelle's saying. Let's just look at teens being radicalized online.

I infiltrated the far-right groups, and I've seen it from within there, but I have peers and mentors and friends that are working the international terrorism, radical jihadists, or far left. They're still being radicalized online. I just like the phrase, it is, hate begets hate. If the far left does something to do something against the right, then the right gets mad. For instance, in the base, they did a call for Operation Crystal Knot, which was kind of a repeat of something that happened under Hitler's Germany.

But it was said to do that because so many of the members were being doxed or outed and they're losing their jobs, their family, their homes. And it was like, hey, how many brothers are gonna fall before we retaliate against the left? So that's why I like to say hate begets hate. And you just got to, we got to come more towards the center, in my opinion.

All right. I want to talk about a story that we intro just off the top in that introduction. This is obviously a group that, you know, sacrificed a goat in one instance. And I'm curious about what that experience was. There was a really interesting couple of chapters there. And I don't want to give too much away,

but tell us a little bit more. What happened there? That was not a good night. It's not what you signed up for or what you thought you were signing up for. Well, yeah, I didn't know it was going to happen. That's for sure. But there I was.

It was basically what people refer to as a hate camp. We probably had 13 or so members of the base from all over the United States that came in. So we're doing tactical training, hand-to-hand combat, how to live off the land, things like that. But at some point on that first night of the the hate camp it was Halloween and several members of the hate camp, it was Halloween, and several members of the group went a few miles away and stole a ram or a goat. I don't know the difference. They both had horns. I'm not sure which one it was, but yeah, it was an ideology that they had a lot of the members of the base where they claimed to be pagan in belief, but just

like white supremacy would take the Christian belief and twist it, they're taking the pagan belief and twisting it and praying to their gods. But the idea was to kick off the wild hunt, not in the Norse mythology terms. The wild hunt would have been the start of the collapse of society and furthering the white race and starting to eliminate non-whites from the planet and anti-fascist people from the planet. Now here you are around a goat with a bunch of gentlemen who are 1920. At one point are you like, why am I here?

Is this a safe place to be? Yeah, at that point I'm thinking more of how do I stay alive and let's get this thing over with. But we went down to what they refer to as the holy site. We went down there, we'd done blots there before. And we carried the goat down there. And after the prayers and whatnot, the guy that was leading it,

it went by the name code name Eisen, he tried to kill the goat with a machete and it went very poorly. It didn't even break a hair on the back. I don't know if it's because the blade was dull or the back strap of the goat was too thick and then somebody basically says hey does anybody have a gun and somebody pulls out a gun hands it to Eisen. Eisen, we're all in a circle on our knees around the goat. However, I ended up at the back of the goat. I'm not sure, but that's where I was. And kind of helping hold the goat. Eisen

chambers around, points it towards the goat, and then turns his head the opposite way. And that's when the instructor in me came out and I'm like, Whoa, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, what? I said, look at'm like, whoa, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, what? I said, look at what you're shooting at, man. We're all in a circle. I mean, what are you doing? And then he ended up killing the goat.

And you think that that's bad enough and it's over? No, it's not. They fill a cup with the goat's blood after slicing his throat. And then in the circle, everybody takes a drink of the blood to honor the sacrifice and that included me. All jokes aside here you're listening to these stories and you're what you're doing shaking your head. Yeah. How are you reacting to some of these stories? It's funny that you say all jokes aside because I was going to say that I mean we're all we're all darkly laughing at this and it is comical and so many of the

stories that Scott had of his undercover cases, there's you know we're talking about the base but there was also he infiltrated the KKK in Alabama and the bikers and they all have this element of tragic comedy and I think that's why we get along so well because we both have that kind of and I think most journalists do so why it's easy for you to laugh too, it's laughable until it's not. And that, and so I hear these stories from Scott and as we were doing these projects, I mean the journalist in me was always a little bit skeptical. I'm like, surely this is not exactly, you know, Scott's a big talker, this is how, he's not a big talker, that's exactly how it went down, which was so remarkable,

because you have the recordings, and then you have the court transcripts, and you're like, wow, this really proves that fact is stranger than fiction. Because you couldn't come up with this stuff in a Hollywood drama. You think it would be too far-fetched. But it's happening.

It's funny. Thank God all his cases went well. Everything ended in convictions. People went to jail. But had it not gone well, had Scott not infiltrated these groups or there hadn't been investigated, would all these groups, the base in particular, were planning be catastrophic, just absolutely catastrophic violence?

All right. I want to talk about another investigation, one of the other big ones in the book. You go undercover for quite some time. This one is Operation Roadkill. Scott, break it down for me. What was that? It was a two year, the investigation itself was longer,

but I was undercover for two years in the outlaws. You can see it right there behind me. The out, that side, I'm turned around right there. The outlaws motorcycle club in Massachusetts. And in a nutshell, this one particular chapter was committing all kinds of crimes. The FBI started working it as a case team and then they interviewed me as a possible undercover. I get picked, I go in. It takes a long time to infiltrate. Sometimes it takes a long time to infiltrate

groups, especially if you're going deep undercover, and that's what happened. And throughout the two year investigation, we uncovered, it started light with insurance fraud, but the case team had already seen that they were dealing drugs, we had extortions, home invasions, assaults, carjackings, you name it. It was kind of a gamut, a full gamut in that case.

Now I actually have a photo here. This is a surveillance shot from 2006 outside Lobster Fest in Massachusetts. This is with the outlaws. There's the shirt that you're wearing, the sleeveless shirt. You've got a sling on because of an injury. I am curious, the person in the red there that's got their back, who's that? That's Scott Tam. All right.

That's who I want to talk about because here's a person, just by looking at that photo, there are some really stark likeness to both of you right there. And I am curious, what makes him different than you? Not a lot. Which is why we hit it off so well. I mean, I don't have any hate in my heart for that guy. I got a lot of love in my heart actually. It was just my job.

But that friendship that I developed with him was pretty much a true friendship to the extent of he didn't know I was an undercover FBI agent. But yeah, it was scary how much we had in common. Depending on which side you're looking at it from, on other sides, it was like, wow, this is my brother. This is my brother from another mother, you know? And I have been told from people that know him very well, after they've seen me on these interviews, they're like, man, you remind us so much of Scott. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I am curious, how do you reconcile being his friend,

having so much love in your heart, but knowing that at some point you have to arrest him? How does, you know, after the investigation is done, you know, you get your accolades and all of that stuff, but that's something that you have to sit with. It's not easy. And that is something that is not usually what people think about when they think undercover, you know, but here's the gist of it. Essentially you are building relationships that you're going to betray.

And that sucks. Sometimes you bond, I mean, if you're deep, for me personally, when I'm deep undercover for two years, a year and a half, I'm bonding with somebody, because that's just my personality. But it's not easy. You have to be able to figure out how to rationalize in your mind

how you're gonna deal with that and then not have an adverse impact on your psyche. At the end of the day, am I doing my job? Yes, but I'm still human, so how do you reconcile that? Maybe it's something as simple as saying, hey, why are you doing this deal? You don't have to do it for me. You told me you got out of the business because of blah, blah, blah. Why are you doing it? And then they're like, no, man, I'm in.

Don't worry about it. I'm doing it. And I'm like, okay, well, I tried. Yeah. I mean, we should clarify that. Yes, you might love him and you and you and you guys look like, like you guys can be brothers. You guys have very different views on sort of on a lot of things. Yes. Yeah. I mean, crime versus not committing crime., but I mean I'm very transparent. It's the only way I know how to be. It's the only way I want to be. I've committed all kinds of crimes before I was in law enforcement. I just didn't get arrested and convicted. Had I been, I would not be able to be a law enforcement officer. So again, I'm not dehumanizing.

A lot of times when I've been arrested, most of the time I've ever had somebody arrested and they're sitting down at a table and I'm in front of them, I'll tell them. I'm not saying I disagree with what you did. I'm not saying I think you're a bad person. I'm saying you're an adult and you chose to break the law and you got caught. So let's start from here. Alright. Michelle, there's a number of stories that I'm sure probably didn't make the book. There's some really big stuff. I'm just curious, what part of Operation Roadkill stuck out to you the most? I think if I had to pick a favorite case, it would be Operation Roadkill because I found what Scott just talked about really interesting,

that idea of the psychology behind how you're able to befriend and then betray. And, you know, I think with the neo-Nazis and the KKK, it was harder for him to find any common ground. But with the bikers, Scott is a biker. I mean, we talked about the physical similarities. And Scott often says this. I ride a Harley, he rides a Harley. I like to drink, he likes to drink.

I had a baby girl daughter at the same time. He had a daughter at the same time. So he's undercover with these guys and he's living this incredible double life that he's going back, because that's the thing I think people don't always realize about undercover. You think it's a full-time job

and you're living with them. It wasn't like that for Scott. I mean, he's two weeks on, he's coming back home and we tried to sort of highlight this in the book and the podcast, the toll that that took. There's a, he has a crazy instant when he almost loses his life on that case.

And you know, hasn't slept, up partying with him all the time, gets on a plane, comes back home, and has to like go play Santa Claus. You know, at an FBI Christmas party with his bouncing his daughters on his lap. So you know, like it's just, to me was the the psychology behind it and and what was really nice working with Scott is He was really open in a way that I don't think you get all the time from law enforcement He was you know to use the word vulnerable and he talked about his his breakdown

He talked about psychological impact how he had to like he talked about the toll it took on his marriage. His wife is incredible and she participated and was really open on this too, you know? So I think in that there's some really important messages because aside from the message of the book of looking at these groups and the dangers that they pose and that kind of sort of reporting side, there's also really this human side of what it takes to be

someone who does this kind of work and the tool. Because you have to be very special to be able to do this. And someone like Scott, I mean, I'm not infiltrating the bikers. Nobody's gonna believe, you know, I'm not infiltrating the KKK. Like he has a special skill set that allowed him to do this. And he did, you know, incredible work

over almost three decades. All right, Scott, you started working right before the height of the war on terror and I'm curious, how did that focus sort of affect what was going on domestically? That's a good question. In the United States, well let me just speak from working at the FBI and doing undercover type cases. I'm going where we as an agency are kind of going to where the crime's kind of building up.

So I already had a reputation of being the biker undercover guy. There was a handful of us that did that kind of thing. We all know each other or knew each other at that time. But then the shift starts changing and you don't see a lot of biker cases being built or made by the FBI. And then we started seeing this, I won't say a rise in the domestic terrorism, but more of a light was being shown upon it. Right. And then you get a Charlottesville

happening and an innocent victim dying in that. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a catastrophic event. I'm actually most of the time it takes a catastrophic event. I'm actually most of the time. It takes a catastrophic event to swing the pendulum a certain way. And it's sad that as humans and in life that has to happen, but it drives things. And once that started, we started seeing more domestic terrorism type cases. It's a lot of online stuff. Like you find, let's just say that there's a thousand thousands of people on these telegram channels or these other dark web kind of encrypted apps and they are spewing hate all day long. But in America, it's spewing. It's not illegal.

How do you know which one of those thousand, if any of them are going to be your next active shooter or going to be the next massacre person. And that's where we have to stay vigilant and go. But everything started shifting. And then oddly enough, the skill set that applied to bikers and backwoods, meth heads, and everything that I was doing kind of went right in to helping me be decent at doing that stuff too. Was there any connections to January 6th, for example, in any of that stuff that you were finding?

Not, not a lot. And that's a big misconception that I do like to talk about. A lot of people think January 6th, they'll say white supremacy, white supremacy. That was not white supremacy. That's a whole different realm of anti-government. And there might've been white supremacists there, but I won't get into the rabbit hole

of conspiracy theories of January 6th, but that was generally anti-government. That would be your pro-gun type crowds that are now doing nefarious things to try to overthrow the government. All right. I want to bring up something that many people remember, of course, 2017, August 11th, 12th, when white nationalists marched throughout Charlottesville, Virginia. You wrote that Americans saw what they had not seen, what you had seen rather, a long time ago.

That this was something that's sort of been brewing. What sign did we miss before that day? That's another good question. In law enforcement, sometimes it's tough because I can look back at the early nineties and gangs. I'm in South Carolina as a cop and you stop somebody and they say, oh, I'm a member of the Crips. And I'm like, in Greenville, South Carolina? Crips here? I'm like, go back to LA. Well, I was an idiot. Like a lot of us, you have used blinders on, you're like, well, not in my neighborhood. And the next thing you know, it was a Crip

member who relocated to South Carolina because his parents wanted him to get a better life. But what he did is come to South Carolina and create new gangs. So it's all around you. You just have to, Michelle did a great quote in the book of the, like the after action post review of 9-11. And it was one of the biggest misfortunes was us not having the imagination to see that something like that could happen. So you have to, again, you have to stay vigilant. You got to keep your eyes open. All right, Michelle, we know both of you in different ways have been on the front lines

of these hate groups. Can you offer any insight in how they formed and whether they're unfortunate? Are they getting worse? It's a really hard question to answer because I don't know if Scott has the same view, but for me, when you are immersed in this for so many years, you just have a skewed perspective, right? I feel it's terrifying.

I feel like we are, especially right now, I feel like the division is worse. People are going more and more online, which is obviously a dangerous place. I feel like a lot of the neo-Nazi groups in the States are rebuilding. So, yes. But I always caution that with, again, because it's all we look at when you're studying this, when you're writing about this, when you're listening to all these recordings, that it does give a skewed perspective. But it's something definitely to be vigilant about

for people to, you know, people often ask, like what's the ask of Scott, you know, what's the advice that you give? It's reading this kind, and it's not a plug for the book, but I mean it's reading this kind of information. Like if you're a parent, like looking at what your kids are looking at, just being really aware that it is out there and not putting the blinders on.

All right. Scott, I'll get your take on it. You know, are things getting worse? It's hard for me to say because I'm not on the front line. I'm retired. I'm still involved. I'm out speaking and teaching and still trying to learn but here's what I'll tell you the things that I saw that were a lot in common with these younger groups of the accelerationist

Ideology and stuff is it's a younger kid who's been bullied who is an outcast can't get a partner and They have a need to belong like most humans do and they are going online in the middle of the night all night long going down a rabbit hole of hate and finding like-minded brothers but it just keeps getting darker and darker. As I referenced earlier, it just happened in the States. A kid kills his parents, his mom and his stepdad, and was planning to do an assassination attempt. He gets arrested, but if you look, as soon as they start doing a deep dive into his stuff,

he was already looking at Order of Nine Angles type things, and that is an accelerationist satanic group. So it's very cliché, but if you see something, say something. Try not to put the blinders on, and I'll go along with Michelle. For me, it's just sitting down and talking and just trying to get this knowledge out there. All right, Scott. I've got one question for you, last one.

After all those years, the grueling days, Michelle talked about it, sort of the toll it takes to sacrifice on your family, on your kids, on your health, mental and physical. Was it worth it? You know, to put yourself through all of that and, you know, seeing all of the things that you were able to accomplish and the arrests and sort of bring in focus to an issue that, as we've sort of allude to, is still a big issue. I'd say yes. I I say it's worth it. Sometimes you'll find like, I'm like, man, if I wouldn't, if this wouldn't happen to me, I would have never got PTSD.

And then within 30 seconds I say, but you know what? Me getting that allowed me to create this one piece of instruction that I do. And I've taught all over the place for many years to thousands and thousands of people. So yeah, I think it's worth it. Of course, if I could do it over, I would do better as a husband and a father and balance my life better.

But it all happened for a reason. And I do believe that the things that I, my peers, mentors, people I've been blessed to mentor did and do and are still doing, makes a difference. All right, well we are gonna leave it there. Thank you so much Scott, thank you Michelle. Really important work and really good read. Thank you. Thank you.