The Current - The FBI agent who infiltrated neo-Nazi biker gangs

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

FBI agent Scott Payne went undercover among neo-Nazis, biker gangs and white supremacists, putting his life on the line to expose their plans for mass violence and terrorism. Now he’s telling his story in the new CBC podcast White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse, hosted by Michelle Shephard.

When Eric and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents in 1989, most people assumed they did it for the money. But over the course of their trials, the Menendez brothers told a very different story. Now, after spending most of their lives behind bars, new developments in the case could lead to the brothers getting out. This week on Crime Story, I speak with Robert Rand, the journalist who's covered this story longer than anyone else. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. Biker gangs, white supremacy and neo-Nazis. It is what the newest season of the CBC podcast White Hot Hate is all about. Tells the story of Scott Payne, retired undercover FBI agent who infiltrated a biker gang called the Outlaws. They are rivals of the Hells Angels. And the podcast is filled with tense moments like this, when Scott was strip searched at gunpoint.

If you've been in a car wreck or anything that's traumatic to you, this is what happens in an adrenaline dump. Time slows down. It could be 30 seconds, but it feels like an hour. Your auditory, you get auditory exclusion. Everything you hear and start sounding like you're underwater is going, whoa, whoa, whoa. Everything you see is like clicks, like click, click time dilation. You can feel your heart beating, you get a little sweaty,

your hamstrings get weak. So we're going down to this little tight place and I start realizing this is not good. Scott Payne's 28 year career as an undercover agent is also told through his memoir, Code Name Pale Horse, How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis. The filmmaker, journalist and podcaster, Michelle Shepard, is host of this podcast. Co-author of the book, Michelle and Scott are here with me now.

Good morning. Hi, Matt. Good morning. Scott, what do you remember about that moment? As you say, this is not good. Yeah, I joke a decent amount now, but at the moment I was scared to death, man. I, uh, you know, you're always trying to stay, um, four or five moves ahead. It's a game of chess when you're doing undercover and you never know what's going to be thrown at you.

So you, you're trying to be ready for anything bad that happens, but I really wasn't ready for that because I, I won't say I got lax, but I've been undercover with them for a year and a half. And then now all of a sudden they're pulling me into a basement and stripping me at gunpoint. So it was not good. I want to ask you a couple of things about that. One is just the outlaws.

Who were the outlaws? What did they do? I said that they were kind of rivals of the Hells Angels, but tell us a bit more about this gang. There's like a big four, one percenter biker gangs. And for the listeners that don't know, it goes back to when World War I, World War II, all of the veterans were coming back. They started creating motorcycle clubs and they were pretty round and raucous.

And the president of the American Motorcycle Association, I believe that's what it was called then, came out and made a statement saying something to the effect that look, 99% of motorcycle riders are good law-abiding citizens, but the 1% is bad. So they took that as a badge of honor, smacked that 1% on their chest and you know there's a slew of other patches that mean different things on them but the Outlaws are still a huge motorcycle club they're one of the largest the Hells Angels probably the largest then you get into like Bandito's maybe Pagan's being your largest 1% of clubs and you know I'm not gonna say that all 1% of biker clubs do criminal activity,

but it's kind of part of the nature. You're saying I'm a 1%er. How did you get mixed up with them? The FBI in Boston, they had a case team that was already working these particular chapters in their area of responsibility. So they've been working with a case maybe a year plus, developing sources, getting evidence, but they knew they could get more and you wanna get the best evidence you can. So they got to the point to where they felt

like they could do an undercover operation and I went up and got interviewed as a possible primary undercover and I got picked. And that's when the art really comes in. You have to get as much intelligence as you can to set yourself up for success. When you meet them for the first time, you have to have your backstory, which we call a legend.

It has to be believable. It has to be able to be vetted. You say that there are certain skills in this that can't be taught, and that you grew up sort of as a people person. How did you know that you were suited to operate undercover? That's a good question. I really have always been a people person. You don't have to be to be a great undercover.

I mean, there's plenty of my friends and mentors and maybe they're quiet. I'm loud. Maybe they're not all tatted up. I am. But I just use my skill set and it's something that I really wanted to do. And I've always been fascinated with the investigative technique of being an undercover and infiltrating. If it is a bad group, sometimes you go in and you'll be in five months and find out, okay, nobody's doing anything illegal on a federal level, it's time for us to close the case. But if they are doing stuff illegal,

I've always been fascinated with that and infiltrating. What is the legend? It depends on the case and the alias that I've built. But this is the backstory, this is who you're supposed to be, right? Correct, yes. It depends on the case and the alias that I've built. But this is the backstory, this is who you're supposed to be, right? Correct, yes. So in other words, you hear my accent, that may not mean anything in Canada, but it's country.

It is somewhat of a southern redneck accent. So what am I doing when I walk into a bar in Northeast United States and Massachusetts, as soon as I start talking, they're going to be like, where are you from? And what are you doing here? So those are simple things you have to be able to answer and pass. Why am I here? You know, it has to be real. It has to look real.

It has to feel real. And it has to pass the smell test. And so I mean, the smell test is key because in that clip that we played, the outlaws are testing you, right? If they had found that you were wearing a wire, what would have happened to you? I would imagine that if we asked the outlaws

that took me down in the basement that night, they may not say what they were truly gonna do. Nothing good, presumably. Exactly, I don't know, I mean, could I have been killed? Yeah, could I have been killed? Yeah. Could I have been, had my butt beat? Absolutely. Could they have just said, get out?

I don't know. But it's nothing I want to find out, especially at that moment. The thing is, is we also found out through other cases against that chapter of the outlaws and the sources and whatnot, that was their MO. When it was time for them to check somebody, they carry them down to that basement, which is super tiny, dark, small, guns, that they've put knives to people's throats.

So I don't know what would have happened, but again, I would have much rather heard that story about somebody and say, man, that sucks than to be standing there naked going, man, this sucks. Pete Slauson Michelle, you like a good story. Michelle Bolling I do like a good story. Pete Slauson How did you come across Scott? Michelle Bolling Well, we did the first season of the podcast

White Hot Hate was about a neo-Nazi group called The Base that had been dismantled. And in that season, we knew there was an undercover cop who had infiltrated this group and he was a part of the series. We had recordings where we heard his voice, but we just knew him as his number, UCE, undercover employee number. And one of the people we interviewed said, you know, I think he told us his name was Scott. Anyway, that series ends. And producer I worked with, Ashley Mack, a few months later said, have you seen this Rolling Stone piece? And there's this amazing profile of this Scott, no last name, who had retired from the FBI and we're reading it and we're like, that's him. That's the guy.

So I reached out because we were thinking at the time, oh, this will just be a bonus episode for the podcast. And the first conversation with Scott was really funny because he was like, yeah, I was wondering when you would call because as we were wondering who he was during this series, he had been listening to the podcast. Oh, that's funny. And at times he told me later, you know, just yelling at his laptop where he was listening saying that's not true. That's not what the guy said. You know, just yelling at his laptop where he was listening saying, that's not

true. That's not what the guy said. Just having us cover his story. So it started as that and then eventually it came that he was going to write a memoir. And honestly, Matt and Scott knows this too. I don't think I even thought about it. I've never written with somebody before. I've written books, but not as we call it as a co-writer, but

essentially it's a ghostwriter, but your name's on it. And I kind of got competitive. I was like, yeah, I think I want to write that book. And I hadn't really thought about it. And then when Scott, there were a few people that had sort of auditioned to write with him. And I met with Scott and his wife a few times on Zoom and he chose me. And then it was just this hilarious conversation when I was like, why, when you thought of embodying yourself, you know, big guy, Republican, Christ follower, Southerner, why did you think of like the lefty agnostic Canadian journalist could capture your voice? And he said something to the effect of like, I thought it would be fun. Anyway, that's a long story to say that started sort of this project where we wrote the book and

then our bonus episode turned into a whole series. What did you make of him when you met him? I mean, I read that Rolling Stone piece way back when. Yeah. And it's an incredible story, partially because you don't know that much about people who operate undercover. Exactly. For a very good reason. That's right. What did you make of him? Well, we hit it off right away. And I mean, at the beginning, it was kind of in journalistic endeavor. I love characters. I love complicated people.

I've had a really incredible career over the years, both at the Star and now independent, meeting all sorts of different people and entering into their world. But then we really kind of hit it off as friends. And it's just been such an interesting couple of years because I don't hang out with people like Scott. I mean, I don't even particularly trust cops.

I spent years of holding cops to account and writing stories about dirty cops. I don't know a lot of Republicans. I don't know a lot of Republicans. I don't know a lot of Southerners. So it was a really, it was just, it was interesting that we get along so well and we could kind of get out of our own bubbles that we live in and kind of learn something from each other. Scott, why did you pick Michelle to be your co-pilot in the story? I recall looking at possible co-writers, She popped right up because she was the only female that I was going to be, of the list they gave. And I am terrible with names. Whatever part of your brain

remembers names, I don't have it. And at this point in my life, I don't even really care to fix it. But I saw Michelle Shepard's name and I was like, man, that looks familiar. And then when we hopped on the Zoom call, she said something to the effect of she can't believe she's actually talking to me face to face because she said, when I interviewed Luke Lane's dad and I went, you're white hot hate. And then she was like, you've listened to us? And like she said, I'm like, absolutely, I've listened to it. I'm like, I'm yelling at the laptop. But let's be clear, I don't really love the nickname White Hawk. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

That's like me saying I'm a white supremacist. I don't like that either. I was pretending to be. But her passion was one of the main things. Her sense of humor was huge. And she already knew about the base. She'd already been diving in. Again, she said, I mean, I got my wife to meet her as well, and we just hit it off, I think, after like two Zoom calls, I think within a week and a half, she was in the United States, coming and visiting the house, and we were starting to learn each other.

and visiting the house and we were starting to learn each other. So much of what you do, Scott, has to do with trust as well, right? I mean, you have to trust the people that are around you, they have to trust you. You end up working, like being close with people that have to trust you, but then you're going to send them to prison perhaps. What is that like? How does that work in your mind? Pete Slauson Well, I'm glad you asked because I speak and teach all over the place as well, and I just taught Monday. And one of the things I put up on the screen, I'm like, hey, what is undercover to you? And a lot of people say the same things. They think it's lying, they think it's acting, or you're pretending to be a different persona. But essentially the definition of undercover is you are building relationships that you're gonna betray if that person is breaking the

law and then we're getting evidence against them. And if you look at it that way it really sucks especially if you're in long-term cases because at least in my experience I'm gonna bond with people But that's just me. I like connecting with people. But you've got to be able to figure out how you're gonna rationalize in your mind to yourself how you can do this betrayal and it not have an adverse impact on your psyche. And for me that may mean maybe before the takedown or before we do something I look at you and go, why are you doing this? You know, you told me you didn't want to do this anymore,

so don't do it for me. Oh no, I'm in. Okay, well I tried. Or maybe I'll just talk to you once the takedown happens and let you know that, hey, this part was the job, but this part was me kind of thing. And I've had people that we took down and arrested and they would still call me or drunk dial me

on my undercover phone just to say hey and that they love me and they knew I was just doing my job. And you read in the book, I mean, that they admired you, some of these people admired you for what you were able to do. Yes. There have been some that even wrote it and said, you know, something to the effect of like, hey, kudos to that guy for being undercover with a bunch of crazy neo-Nazis who were armed.

There's a cost of this work on you as well. And this comes out in the book, it also comes out in the podcast where we hear from your wife under her alias. And she talks about the strain of this job and what you just described on your marriage, particularly after one incident. Have a listen to this. I kept telling him to leave, get out, and he wouldn't. He kept persisting and persisting. And I was like, if you don't leave, I'm going to make two phone calls. One is to the cops and the next one's to the divorce lawyer.

I'm like, just get out of my house. What is it like for you to hear your wife talk about that time in your work and the impact that your work had on you and her? Not good. When you're in the moment and you can have as much training but you can still put on blinders. You know, we cover this stuff in training a lot or maybe I didn't get a lot of it.

And then after I went through that, we put on more cause I'm trying to spread the knowledge. But it's not good to hear. And then doing the book, we had to dive back into these rough times. So you're kind of reliving it. And even though, like over the last several years, of course, I'm like, look, I realized this was going on. But just doing the book, I learned that I was basically a ghost because I was doing so much during that timeframe that she's talking about right there. I was doing so much stuff and I stopped taking care of myself. Michelle, why is that important to have in both of these strands, meaning in the book and the podcast?

It was really important to me. And I think I pushed Scott a few times and we, especially for the podcast, really wanted to make sure his wife had a voice because nobody does this type of work without a support system. And I say this with respect, I think Scott would agree, you have to be kind of selfish to do this work. Like you have to go into that bubble. And his wife is really incredible in that she supported that. And she went through a lot, as everyone does.

And I mean, I can say this even from a little bit of experience, like having been a foreign correspondent and being, you know, in dangerous places, I know what that's like. And I always have been so thankful for a family that is really supportive and lets you do that. Um, because it does take an emotional toll on yourself too. And, and Scott is, this is, you know, part of the book and the podcast that I think I like the most and you don't hear about is the breakdown that he

had, is the toll it took on his wife and his marriage. Um, that was really honest for him to go forward and do that. And that's something that I think, you know, I think our partnership worked well in that because I think there was, you don't need to be a female to get that out, but there was like a little bit more of a push, I think, in that direction than maybe some others would have. And I think it really presents the whole story. And that's a story that needs telling. I'm Zing Singh.

And I'm Simon Jack. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring the lives of some of the world's richest people. In the new season, we're setting our sights on some big names. Yep, LeBron James and Martha Stewart to name just a few. And as always, Simon and I are trying to decide

whether we think they're good, bad, or just another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Find it on BBC.com or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You both have mentioned the base a couple of times. What is the base, Michelle? Well, unfortunately, it's a group that's apparently rebuilding a bit again, but it's known as an

acceleration group and I can let Scott talk more about that movement, but it's a neo-Nazi group of young, disenfranchised white Americans. We had a very famous Canadian who joined the group. It's really quite worldwide. And the idea of accelerationism is that it's this group that basically just wants to cause chaos to spark a race war. Scott, tell me more about this. One of the things that you say in the book is that when

the average American thinks of white supremacy, they think of the Klan. But the Klan are your grandpa's white supremacists. What is the base and how do you understand that idea of accelerationism? Good question. The white supremacy movement, like if you go back to KKK or even Aryan nations, KKK is not necessarily neo-Nazi. They're saying they're white separatists now because it's not as, they don't think it's as offensive as being a white supremacist, but it's pretty much the same thing. But then you get to these groups that you're asking about, the accelerationist, and that's, in my opinion, one of the biggest threats on the domestic terrorism level.

They don't believe that there is a political solution to save the white race. They believe that society is either going to collapse on its own or for manmade events, and they want to speed that collapse up, hence the term accelerate. The base was more like an umbrella group for neo-Nazi accelerationists, and I say that because every member I met in the base was a member of another white supremacy group. But their mentality is more, don't go out and do the Charlottesville or stand on the corner with picket signs, screaming, racial slurs and stuff, because you're making yourself a target and you're not making any change at all.

They're more like, think like guerrilla warfare style tactics where it's small attacks. In other words, you're in your town, a power grid goes out over here, a train's derailed over here, a water system's poisoned, somebody either anti-fasc or non-white is murdered, businesses are set on fire, things like that, just to create chaos, to cause a collapse in society. And in their mind, which is in most minds of white supremacists, it always ends with them getting their own ethnostate of whites only. You were sent to infiltrate this group. What was the goal of that? In this case in particular with the base, we had a lot of information, as Michelle said,

coming from all around the world. All world working partners were reaching out because they had members of the base or flyers being posted for the base recruitment in their countries. And when they started researching, they saw that a lot of the stuff was coming from the United States. And they reached out to us, and we were working with them back and forth. And I just happened to be on the front lines of that stuff. And I was able to say, hey, I'll do the undercover. So going into the base, we know that they're like posting a bunch of radical stuff, which in America isn't illegal because we have the constitution and the first amendment

is freedom of speech. So you can walk out in the street here and say, I hate all insert racial slur. You can say, I want all insert racial slur. You can say, I want all insert racial slur to die. That's not illegal. But if they start using violence or breaking the law to accomplish their goals, then that's what we're jumping in there for. Pete Slauson You say that in 25 years of undercover work, you had never burned Bibles, set fire to an American flag, or stole a goat, sacrificed it

in a pagan ritual and drank its blood, but you did that in three days with the bass. Good times, right? Somebody's idea of a good time. I'll pass. What did you learn from that experience? It was weird, you know, and there are men and women out there that have done way more undercover than me, that have done more harrowing things than me.

And there's people that have done this kind of stuff. But for me personally, my skill set had not led me into that environment. And I said it kind of jokingly, but that's that I came up with that those couple of sentences the week after all that that Halloween of 2019 when all that happened. And it was just weird, you know? When you're undercover, I'm not too far of what I really am. But as a Christ follower, when I'm down there and I'm dealing with satanic worshiping, because

we say it's a pagan ritual, but some of them will pray into, you know, satanic gods. How did Scott describe his time at the base to you, Michelle? Oh, it's wild. I mean, that's just one of the stories. I mean, the base was probably the craziest case, but when we talked earlier about the biker case, that was amazing too. I mean, you can tell he's such a good storyteller. He said he's not good with details with names, but Scott remembers all these details vividly.

And when he said we share that kind of dark sense of humor, I've always been attracted to this kind of theater of the absurd, right? And every case that he had been undercover was this fine line between being like, you just want to laugh or you cry. But when he would tell these stories, you know, the journalist in me would be like, okay, he's a big talker, he's embellishing this. And then I'd find the court records or he, you know, there would be wiretap of this stuff. And I'm like, wow, that's actually how it happened. So every case he had, every case that we cover there is just rich with

these really bizarre details. There's one of the cases where he infiltrated the KKK. And for me, that was such a gross eye opener that in 2017, perhaps this is naive to say, but in 2017 in a field in Alabama, they're burning a 30 foot cross and there are the guys in white hoods. But every story he tells from that is like a scene from Django Unchained. I mean, the grand wizard is messing up the script and, you know, it's so again, it's that idea of like, yeah, you can kind of laugh at this and all his cases ended in arrest and guilty pleas.

But my gosh, it's such a dark humor because the danger that is out there in so many of these cases and, you know, the danger that these pose it's it's amazing storytelling and you never get that glimpse as you said earlier you never get that glimpse from from his perspective. You have covered national security issues for a long time Michelle and just finally I mean these are great stories but the stories are actually about something that is still thriving in the United States right now and it's not just people in hoods in a field burning crosses. When you think of this moment, what should we be thinking about when it comes to the

prevalence of this kind of behavior online and beyond, and this kind of hate online and beyond? I think you just have to be aware. You know, it's really, it's out there, I think for parents, so much of this now is online, you just have to be aware of what it is, know what your kids are looking at. Have the conversations. Um, you know, as I said earlier, part of this, this project doing this book and, and, and the podcast is, I mean, we're, we're incredibly different people from

different walks of life. We're coming together to tell an important story. Um, but just have those conversations. We're in such a divisive world right now. Nobody's talking anymore, everybody's just shouting. Scott, is there a little part of you that's amazed that you survived this? Sure.

My usual response is, I'm not a smart man. You know, they're like, why did you do this? And I go, I'm not smart. Yeah, I mean, if you look back, there's some harrowing things, but scary moments. But again, if I'm no different than, than other first responders or other undercovers, I mean, if you're on the front line, you're there facing it and you're going in, especially as an undercover, you're going in, I mean,

picture being in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Alabama with 30 plus people who are armed and you're the only FBI guy and you don't want them to know it. I mean, I'm a very optimistic type person. My glass is always half full. So I don't sweat the small stuff so much, but I keep my eyes open to be aware of those dangers. Do you miss it at all? Sure. The thing I miss the most is flying armed, because I did that for 23 years and now I can't fly arm. But the interaction with people, that's just me. I love connecting with people from a kid all the way till now. It doesn't matter

big, small, smart, dumb, rich, poor, any ethnicity, any color, it doesn't matter to me. I love it all. It's an amazing story and it's so well told to your point, Michelle. Scott, thank you very much. Thank you. Michelle, it's great to see you again. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Scott Payne is now now retired undercover FBI agent. His memoir is code name Pale Horse. It's out now.

Michelle Shepard is co-author of that book. She is also host and writer of the CBC podcast White Hot Hate. And season two of that podcast called Agent Pale Horse premiered on the 25th of March. You can get that wherever you find your podcasts.