Transcript of #331 Scott Payne - FBI Undercover Agent Reveals the Most Disturbing Cases of His Career

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Qualifying direct deposits required. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details. Scott Payne, sir, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for coming.

Finally, finally. I feel like The Rock. Finally, the Scott is on the Sean Ryan Show, man.

I've been pumped for this.

Well, thanks, man. I am too.

Let me, uh, start you out with an introduction here.

All right, here we go.

Scott Payne, your retired FBI undercover agent who spent more than 2 decades infiltrating drug traffickers, outlaw motorcycle clubs, human traffickers, and violent extremist organizations. Over the course of your FBI career, you led dozens of undercover operations as the primary agent when most agents at the time might lead only a handful. Last year, you became a New York Times bestselling author with the release of your memoir, Codename Pale Horse. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, man.

My pleasure. So a couple things to knock out here real quick. Everybody gets a gift.

Uh-huh. Nice.

Oh, Vigilance League gummy bears.

Perfect.

Excellent candy. There's no funny business in them other than a bunch of sugar and, you know, other shit.

That's the yellow— what is it, yellow dye?

Yellow 5.

Yeah, it's probably in there. It's probably in there.

Yeah, but, uh, and then, uh, we got a Patreon account. They've been with me since the beginning when I started this thing in my attic and it was just me and my wife. We couldn't make any damn money.

Yeah.

And, uh, they've been here with us ever since then, all the way up to now. So they're the reason I get to sit down with you today.

Excellent.

And, uh, so one of the things I do is, um, I offer them the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. So here we go. This is from Ron Sorrentino. Sorrentino, excuse me. Scott, working undercover and dealing with the world's With— excuse me— Scott, working undercover and dealing with the worst of, of the worst the world has to offer, was there a time when you wanted to stop or you felt you were in too deep?

Hmm. Um, I don't think so off the top of my head, but there's some other things I could say about that. Sometimes it's tough to realize when it's time to pull out, you know, so I pull chocks and say, hey, we've got everything we need. This is too dangerous, whatever. But yeah, he said worst of the worst. And what was he asking?

He said, was there a time when you wanted to stop or you felt you were in too deep?

Okay. As far as a time I wanted to stop, sometimes we'll probably talk about it, but my body told me it was time to stop. I didn't want to stop mentally, but my body said, you're done. And some of the, like, anything to do with the child stuff, the pedophiles and stuff and picking those. Yeah, I want out. I can't. Like, I've trained agents. I've been their training agent and they were working that stuff as an undercover coordinator. I might be helping them on the COVID side, but as far as working that violation and looking at that stuff daily, I can't. Yeah, yeah, that's not me. Now, I've been hired. I've been undercover, and a pedophile hired me to kill the kid he molested. Um, you know what? Oh yeah, I was happy to do that one. I'm like, yeah, let's get you, buddy. Time to go to jail.

He hired you to kill the kid he molested?

Yeah, which actually isn't a bad plan as far as murder for hire go that I've been a part of. Um, he knew that he was going to do bad in prison. So while he was in jail in San Antonio, Texas, he solicited a gang member to help him find somebody that could murder this kid. Well, maybe the general public doesn't know it, but in jail, it's all sharks, and they're looking for blood in the water. What I mean by that is if you can get credit for something and shorten your time, as soon as you get that information, you're on the phone calling your lawyer saying, hey, I got something good. And that's how we kind of found out. But yeah, I went in and met the guy. I only did 2 meetings. But, um, I met him, showed him a picture of the kid, make sure it was the one. And, uh, he's greedy. He actually— I kind of giggled because it caught me off guard, but, uh, he— when we're talking about murdering the kid, he, uh, he said, yeah, and I'd like you to kill the rest of his family too. And they're like in Wisconsin.

And I'm like, well, hey, let's, let's deal with one at a time, but I'm not afraid to travel, you know. Let's talk about money and stuff. But yeah.

What does something like that go for?

Oh, it's nothing. It's not like TV. I mean, I've known some people. For me to see somebody get $100,000 to murder somebody, that's— that was more TV stuff. I've known a couple who've done that highfalutin stuff, maybe like a cartel level or something, but I never saw it. Mine were $2,000, $10,000.

Fucking serious?

No, that's—

yeah, $2,000.

Yeah. Yep. Or it'll be like, uh, they'll be like, hey, uh, you murder them, there's a $100,000 insurance policy. When we get that $100,000, we'll give you $12,000, you know, or something like that, whatever you come up with. But of course, I'm not— I'm like, you, you want me to go kill somebody based on your word that you're gonna give me money after you get the settlement? No, you got to give something up front.

So holy shit. I never would have thought it'd be that cheap.

Yeah.

Especially here in the States.

Yeah.

Wow. Damn. That's fucking crazy, man.

But a lot of them are criminals for a reason.

Yeah.

You know, they're not— Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's not the smartest person you're dealing with, but yeah.

Good point.

You know, who's going to kill somebody for 2— I mean, I don't know. Weird. Weird.

Follow-on question.

Okay.

What was your everyday carry?

Uh, the Bureau would only let you carry the Baby Glock. Really? Yeah, they used to. And the FBI, they had a personally owned weapon program. And as the years went on, the— if you had a personally owned weapon, it still has to go to Quantico. The firearms people there have to go through it. You got to send it in with 4 mags. They make sure they test it just like they test an FBI weapon. So it has to pass that. Well, it gets to a point to where there's so many different weapons out there, all the guys at the firearms unit that are tinkering with it, they're like, dude, I don't want to work on this gun. That's— so they just narrowed it down to the baby Glock. But me, what I carry now, my everyday carry is— well, first of all, in the Bureau, my everyday carry was a Glock 22 in the beginning, and then it was the Glock 17. Um, but now my EDC is a SIG P365 XL.

Oh, no shit. Yeah, right on.

Yeah, I did like the way— because I got bigger hands— I did like the way the, uh, the Springfield XDS felt, but I mean, it's like voodoo. I put, I put the— I mean, I understand it, but I put the P365 XL with 17 rounds and one in the chamber next to my full-size Glock with 17 rounds and one in the chamber. And I'm like, how do you fit? Yeah, that's like— I don't get it.

How long you been carrying that Sig?

Uh, since before I retired.

Right on.

Yes, I retired, uh, 5 years ago. Yeah, June 30th of '21.

Congratulations. Yeah, welcome to the civilian world, right? Well, I got you a present.

That's another present. But, uh, hold on, let me grab it here.

You seen these? No. You haven't seen these?

That's the, uh— Is that the 320?

No, that's the SIG P211 GTO with the new optic on there. So I got a friend over at SIG, maybe you've heard of him, his name's Jason, and, uh, he's a big fan of yours.

He was like, are you serious?

Yeah, man.

You're serious? Yeah, this is so awesome, man.

Because maybe we can go, uh, break that bad boy in out back here. You know, I got a range right out the back.

I saw, I saw when I rode. Holy cow.

Yeah, I think you're gonna like that. It's got that compensator up front, shoots super flat. It's got the brand new optic on it. I'm having a brain fart, I can't remember how many rounds it holds. I think it's 21, but we'll find out.

It's never enough. It's never enough. Obviously, man, this is unbelievable.

You're going to love it.

Oh, it feels so good. It's like a glove. Oh, yeah. I'm just going to start wearing it right here. It's not the most tactical place, but, you know, on a chain, like a bear gun. This is amazing.

Right on, man.

Amazing.

Well, hey, we want to do a life story on you.

Okay.

And all the way from childhood up to today.

Let's do it.

You ready?

Yeah.

All right. Where'd you grow up?

Greenville, South Carolina. The Greenville.

The Greenville, South Carolina.

Yeah.

What were you into as a kid?

Sports. Sports, definitely. I laugh. I played basketball. The basketball league at the Baptist Church. The Baptist Church Basketball League, still to this day, me and my high school buddies, we'd laugh. That was some of the most violent. Those Baptists, I mean, cussing, screaming. They're like, man, it's church. What are we doing? You're like throwing elbows, get him, get him, you know? But sports. And then, I mean, my first 7 years I went to a Christian school and then I switched into public school system. That transition, ooh, I was not too good at peer pressure. I wouldn't get it all. I almost got expelled, like, in 8th grade for right off the bat showing some nude pictures for a class project. It was not smart, but it was a dare, you know. That's what I mean. This is what I mean. Maybe, maybe the public school system, uh, I was not desensitized to. And it would be like, uh, you know, I dare you to go up there and do this. And I knew it was wrong, and I'm like, I'm not doing that. I'll get in trouble. Chicken. I'm not a chicken. I mean, and I just go up there and do it, you know.

The next thing you know, I'm sitting in the principal's office when my dad and mom come and they're like, what did you do? And I'm like, well, I showed this picture for propaganda for the class. Technically, what I showed was correct. It was propaganda. It just wasn't— I wasn't— I was a bad boy.

What'd your parents do?

Uh, my dad had a landscaping company. And so he built it. Um, in that time he had, uh, this was before your Lowe's and Walmarts and Home Depots and stuff like that. But, um, it was, uh, he had one of the top 3 largest landscaping companies in upstate South Carolina. Yeah, right on. So that's what I grew up in, and I think that's where I got a lot of my, uh, work ethic. Um, my mom, uh, She definitely a workaholic, a hard go-getter, smart, book smart. Dad, hard worker, dropped out in the 10th grade, street smart.

Gotcha.

But my dad would drop me off. The bigger I got, the older I got, the more stuff I had to do. You know, like now, okay, now you can carry this, now you can do that. Till it gets to a point to where I'm getting dropped off on the job site. But here I am. Just a teenager playing football, and I'm working for my dad's company, and you got all these grown men looking at you like, oh, you know, silver spoon, you know, like, it's my nose itching, sorry. They're like, uh, oh, silver spoon, you know. And these, these are older dudes, full beards, drinking whiskey in their coffee in the morning, smoking filterless cigarettes. So the only thing I could think to do was just outwork them.. And that's what I tried to do. I'm like, I don't want you to think I'm getting by because my dad's the owner of the company.

No shit.

Yeah, I'm going to try to outwork you.

And that's not too many kids like that.

No. And I just look at them, I'd be like, you know, we can get this job done quicker if you stop all those cigarette breaks.

No shit. How old were you when you adopted that?

Probably 16, 17, somewhere in there. Yeah.

Damn.

Yeah. And then, you know, it's— you don't think about it then, but you look back at your life, like doing the book. I'm reading, you're writing all this stuff, you're like, man, I forgot about that. Oh, that's crazy, you know. But you can look back and see, oh, this is where I started forming that mentality. So yeah, I, uh, grew up in a Christian home, musicians, singers, um, and you know, there were times where like my family would be singing at another church, and we'd go visit that church and they would sing there, sing and play. Or it'd be a startup church and we'd go help open it and play. So that's kind of— I just remember a lot of weekends going over to my aunt and uncle's house, and all of his— I mean, the kids are running around eating ice cream and playing, but I just remember them in there playing.

Right on. Yeah. Are you a Christian?

Yeah, Christ follower today. Yeah, right on. Absolutely. Yeah, I I actually, I'm a musician as well. I play at Faith Promise. I did 3 services Sunday.

Oh, right on.

Yeah. Got to be there at 6:00 AM.

Right on.

On stage at 6:00 AM, ready to go. Yeah.

Brothers, sisters?

No, I'm single. Single child. Had stepbrothers and stepsisters, but it was later on. Like, I was already a teenager. So I mean, we connected a little bit, but not like growing up.

What were you into in high school?

Uh, sports again, and a musician. I, uh, played football. That was my main sport. Started lifting weights a lot more. Um, and then, uh, probably 8th grade, I started picking up musical instruments. And just because I was watching, and then I would learn. I taught myself how to play the drums. Um, uh, but I started on bass. And, and then one day I went and grabbed my mom's acoustic guitar and I did a full chord. And when I did it, I was like, oh, I like that. And then just over the years I've gotten better and better. And, you know, right on.

Well, I think I read somewhere that you got into Satanism or something.

Yeah. Oh, you did? Did you?

Yeah, I think I read that somewhere.

So how do you go from—

how do you, how do you go in from being in a good Christian Baptist family, playing at churches, to getting into that?

Well, again, looking back, I can see what happened. My parents got divorced when I was about 13, or it all started around 13. But they would— I just remember them asking me, come up and they're like, hey, are you okay with this? You're all right with this? And I'd be like, yeah, I don't care. I don't care. Actually, in my head I was saying, I don't give an F, you know, in my head. I'm like, I don't give an F. But that I don't give an F started going into everything that I chose to do. And I had a friend introduce me to witchcraft and Satanism. And this is in high school in the '80s. And you start studying Aleister Crowley and like books on spells and witchcraft and then signing pacts with the devil, things like that. And I went, yeah, I'm an idiot. Actually, I'm a very blessed person. 'Cause there was a lot of people praying for me during that, and I didn't know it at the time, and they weren't sure what was going on with me, but I was being prayed over. And I'd gone to— for the listeners, they may not even remember a VCR tape, but you know when you could go to Blockbuster or Pic-A-Flick and rent movies?

Please rewind, be kind, rewind. Oh yeah, I remember that. But I would go to the horror section and I'd go A to Z. And watched every single movie they had. And I started doing like these little skits, if you wanna call 'em that, where like I would pretend to talk like Freddy Krueger but worse. And I would act like a demon. And I was an idiot. I was losing my friends. I had a bad attitude. And I'm talking about my friends that in the book I put in there, we called ourselves the Brew Crew, but we spelled it like Motley Crue. And that was our high school group. And we're still tight to this day. A matter of fact, I'll be seeing them in a couple of weeks. But they were starting to move away from there, like, man, you got to let that stuff go. We love you, but we can't— you can't put up with this stuff. And I would do— I was just evil. Like, I'm not a huge hunter. I will hunt if I need to. For some reason, I don't have a problem hunting birds and stuff, and I love fishing.

But during that phase, I shot everything that came into my yard and I was out of cruelty. I was going through some, I was going through some stuff.

What was the draw?

Evil. Power.

Power?

Yeah.

You got power out of that?

Well, you think you do. You see what I'm saying? You're like, it can corrupt. It can corrupt. And it's a lot like what I saw in my law enforcement career. You just want to belong. You want to fit in somewhere. And yeah, I was pretty evil. So that's really why I don't do it now. I don't have a problem. I've had roommates, my best friends do it. We'll cook it up, whatever. But as far as me pricing it out and learning what all I got to do, I'm like, I'll just go to Kroger. I'll just get— I'll just buy it there. But I was doing things like I had a Volkswagen Bug, oddly enough, for my first vehicle. So you got to get that worked on at a different place, right?

I don't imagine you driving a Volkswagen Bug.

A lot of headroom. A lot of headroom. I think it was a 1970, 1970 white, white bug. That was my first, first vehicle.

So no wonder you got into it.

Shit. So you take it— the place we took the car to to get fixed or worked on was a Christian shop, and that's openly Christian, Christian music and everything. And man, I would play like It would be like maybe Helloween or some supposed satanic band from the '80s. And I would set the cassette so when you cranked up the car, it would be right at a very horrifying part of the song or something. And I would do that just out of pure spite and evilness. So as the story ends, one night I was doing this skit. We were drinking, no hallucinogenics, nothing like that, just beer. And I was spending the night at a house and my buddy and his girlfriend were on the bed and I was on the couch. And I was acting like a scene that I'd seen in one of the movies where it was a demon possession. So I'm acting like my voice is fighting the demon voice. And then I would talk in the demon voice and then I would talk in my voice and be scared and be like, "No, no." And at the end, It culminates, the scene culminates with me laughing like the demon because the demon wins and it's now possessed me because I saw that in the movie.

And like, again, that I don't care, that I don't give an F, I was applying it to everything. And as I'm laughing like the demon, I was facing the back of the couch, but as I'm laughing like the demon, I roll over. And as I roll over, what I see is like a watery image but it's red. It's like, you know, you can see the ripples and it's a watery image in red. And it was a demon or the devil, but it was a demon looking at me and it was smiling. His fingers were all like crooked with long fingernails. And as I was laughing, acting like I was being possessed and rolled over and saw it, it was looking at me smiling, going like this, saying, come here. And I screamed. I screamed a very high-pitched, loud scream. And from just here on the couch to hitting the light switch right there, that quick, I was pale white. I was pouring sweat, panting, breathing. Then my buddy Ricky jumped up and he goes, what? Because his girlfriend screams like, what the— and he goes, what is it? And I looked at him and I said, if I ever do that again, I said something to the effect of, you have my permission, you can take a bat, crack me over the head with it.

And he had been telling me You know, but the room just got super calm and it was like it wasn't even Ricky. It was like, it was like the spirit looked right at me and said, because it just calmed down, he looked right at me and he went, I told you, didn't I? And I was like, yes, you did. And I didn't sleep that night. I walked to church. Damn. I didn't have, I didn't have my car. I hitched a ride over.

And what did it look like?

Huh?

What did it look like?

Uh, the demon? Yeah. Just, I saw red. So it was a red background, red image, and the demon was red. But you could see the outline of the demon and you could see the face was kind of stretched and horns and just the finger, man, this black, yeah, just looking at me smiling. Yeah. Saying, come here. And that was it. That was it for me and devil worshiping. I was done.

That was it.

That was it, man. So I started, so yeah, I grew up Christian. I remember when I went to get baptized and they ask you, they say, "So you've been saved?" I said, "Yeah." They said, "Well, when were you saved?" I said, "Which time?" And they said, "What do you mean which time?" I said, "Man, I went to a Christian school my first 7 years and like every week or every couple of weeks they'd bring in a new preacher and they'd go hellfire and brimstone and they'd do an altar call. I felt guilty at every one of them. I got saved every time there was a preacher that came there." Maybe I needed to be dunked twice, you know what I mean? He's still a little dirty. Let's put him back down.

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Yes.

What got you interested in that?

Uh, great question. Actually, my parents. Watching my parents go through depression. Um, watching my parents go through depression, watching, uh from my understanding as a young teenager, that they went to a doctor, a psychologist, psychiatrist, whatever, and that doctor gave advice of my dad needs to leave for whatever reason. And I'm thinking as a kid, I'm like, what? Why would they? Why? So that— and then I watched my dad suffer through depression when he was in his 30s. I saw my mom, and that kind of— I don't know, it kind of got me interested once I saw that as— I guess as an elective in high school. I know it would be elective in college unless it's your major or whatever. But anyway, I saw those classes and I took them, man. I mean, behavioral psychology, child psychology. I still got the books, you know. It's like I, I pull back on that when I'm talking to parents today. I'm like, listen, you need to understand the development of the brain in kids, and there's certain things they don't need to be trying to process and watch, like horrific slasher flicks that look 100% real, or playing certain video games that look 100% real, you know?

Yeah. So cool.

Cool. What got your interest in law enforcement?

Oh, I'm sorry. I'll go back on the psychology thing too.

Okay.

Sorry. Trying to get a sip of coffee without burning myself. Good. I didn't burn myself. I was waiting. You know, that gum. It's too late for me, Sean. Save yourself. I see the light. So psychology, I started taking in high school and man, I really was fascinated with it. So several times in my college life it was my major, but I ended up majoring in criminal justice and I got a minor in psych. But they would have— they took 6 hours, 2 more classes. I could have got a double major.

Right on.

But I was out.

I was—

when it was— when I graduated, I was done. With college.

Right on. So what did— what, what, uh, I mean, dad's a landscaper, mom's book smart.

What, what happened to me?

Yeah, what happened to you? Why, why law enforcement?

Um, I guess when I was in college, I started taking electives because I was changing stuff around. I mean, at one point I had like business as a major, and one point I had like computers and That was before even Windows and stuff was out. It was just the old 1980s square, you know, font, the square font. But I came across a criminal justice course and I really loved it. I loved criminology. So that's like the psychology and sociology mixed in, like studying criminals after their death, brains, you know, all kinds of forensic stuff. I loved it. Not so much like the business law and tort law stuff you have to take as well, but just that whole enforcement thing. I don't know. I really took to it and I was already bouncing. So as a bouncer in Charleston, South Carolina, some of the places I bounced at, they had a cop would work a side job there and be outside. And I just start like a sponge, man. Just started talking. And the first time I went on a ride-along, I was like, yeah, this is what I like. This is good. Why?

What happened?

I don't— you know, I don't know. Like, when I was playing college ball, it's very similar to this. I almost signed up for the Marine Corps, but I was already in college. And I remember dropping somebody off from college. A kicker had a friend come in who was at Parris Island, and I'm in Charleston, North Charleston, and he needed a ride back and I had a car. So they searched. Long story short, I drove him. I said, look, I'll drive down, but on the ride back, you're driving me back and I'm studying because I got a test the next day. So I'm at Parris Island and I had a high and tight. It was just shaved all the way up, number one, and maybe like actually nothing all the way up and then just a number one right there. So it kind of looked like maybe I should have been a Marine, but I ate at the Burger King on the base and I don't know what stripes mean. I'm a kid. And I'm getting these looks like, why am I not saluting or something? And I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

I'm really not supposed to be here right now. But I remember I've always thought that the uniform was awesome. But I remember it was like a movie scene. The sun setting. I mean, it's breaking, it's going down. You can barely see what's left of the sun and you hear it. Oh, cha-cha-cha, cha-cha-cha. And you see over the crest, man, you see that flag coming. And here comes the platoon. Dude, I got goosebumps right now. I was like, that's some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen. So I thought that's what I wanted to do. And I go back to college, I got everything lined up. I just got to sign my name to the dotted line. And I go back to tell my coach at college that I'm going to miss a football season. And when I come back, I'm probably going to be a lot lighter. Probably won't be that lineman weight you're looking for. I'm probably going to be more like an end or something, you know, move me on out. But he said, why? And I started telling him camaraderie, the discipline, the just being a part of something bigger than yourself and all this.

And he was the son of a Baptist preacher. He said, son, we got that here. We're built. That's why we got the Rock out there. We're building the foundation. We're building this program. On the rock and you gotta like, we got dress codes, we got this, and hook, line, and sinker. That was it. That's close as I got to signing. Right on. So, but yeah, the college football, that was great. That was great. I wasn't the best, you know, I had a bad attitude towards the end of my time, but it really taught me a lot. Taught me a lot about team. I can tell you that.

Yeah.

I had the highest, I mean, I think I had the highest grade point average. I had a 3.8 my last 2 years. So I don't think I'm smart. I just know how to take notes, and I knew how the teacher talked, you know. I was good at memorizing. But, uh, I signed up. I had it set up for me to where I didn't have to go to class till like 1 o'clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I go out, party, do whatever, man. Sleep in, get a good workout. They had mandatory sign-in for breakfast, and even though I didn't have to go to class at 1 o'clock, I had to go up there every morning and sign in before 7, I think. And I remember talking to the coach, and I was like, I said, the purpose of this is to make sure that the football players are awake. You know they're up and they're going to class on time. They said, yeah. I said, I've got one of the highest grade point averages on this team and I don't have to be in class at 1:00. Why do I have to come in here and sign?

And that's where I learned about team, because everybody's doing it. And I was like, wish I'd have known that. I'd have set myself up for some classes. I'm up anyway. Might as well go to class. I'll just sit here and watch Days of Our Lives until class Stars or something. Days of Our Lives, Young and the Restless. Oh man, man, that was back when we only had 4 channels, you know, the old knob. Yeah, that's it, man. You were awesome when you had the remote control. That was good stuff. Color, you can't hide money.

So where do we go from here?

Um, you ask why law enforcement. I guess I can go there. Yeah. So when I started taking those criminal justice courses, and like I said, I was already bouncing and I was getting trained by law enforcement in like pressure points and control tactics and stuff like that. We were getting certified in that kind of stuff even as bouncers. I was just getting more exposure to it and I just took to it. I don't know if it's— I've always had like a bully of bullies. I'm not trying to say I'm tough. I mean, you're an awesome tough dude. You had all kinds of people on here. It's not a chest beating thing. It's just that I've always liked the underdog, I guess. I've always— I mean, have I been a bully in my life? Yes. Do I regret it? Yes. But for the most part, I was a bully of bullies. Like, if I saw somebody picking on somebody that was like— let's just say football in college. Let's just say somebody's a starter. You know they're starting. They know they're starting. They're awesome. But you got like a third stringer, third team. You know they're never going to start.

But they got heart and they're out there and they're trying. But you see that starter roughing up the person even after the whistle blows. Well, then maybe that's when I'm coming full speed and I'm putting it in your earhole.

Nice.

And go, oh, that's my fault, man. I didn't hear the whistle blow. Sorry. Let me help you up and then have a conversation that we can do this all day, or you can quit picking on that guy.

That's awesome.

If it's 50%, go 50%. Don't go 100, or we'll go 100 and then we'll see.

You know, I like that. You know, I wish more people were like that.

Yeah, well, it goes with that. As I got older, it goes— everybody's, you know, warrior, warrior. But now warrior's offensive. But really, shepherd. Because in my mind, I look at it like this. Not all warriors are shepherds. A warrior is going to go in there and get it done, whatever it takes. But not all warriors are shepherds. But all shepherds are warriors.

I like that.

If you're a shepherd, I mean, you're out there. It's the flock. You're a peace officer. You're protecting. To protect and serve. It used to say it on every police car. You know, that's what you are. You'll go after— you'll leave the flock to save the one.

So what happened on the ride-along? Anything?

Oh well, goodness gracious, anything and everything was exciting to me. A car stop, coming up to a burglary that already occurred. I was, yeah, I was sucking it up.

What kind of questions were you asking the guys that you were bouncing with?

Uh, well, I mean, hiring standards. What's the tryout like? You know, what, how long you been in it? Cool stories. You know, I'm sure I was like everybody else. Have you ever shot anybody? You ever been shot? That's like the first question. How many people have you killed? You know, that's not what— that's not what you ask them. Don't ask them that, you know. But I loved it. And then I came out of college with that 3.8 average, Dean's List the last 2 years. Even though I look and sound like trash, I was all right on paper, you know. But I couldn't get a job. Everybody I went and applied— I applied at 4 different places. And they said at that time, they said, man, we really— we, uh, we— they told me they liked it, that I was a good candidate, but they weren't hiring white men at that time. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And I was like, well, that would have been good to know before I spent the last 4 years majoring in this. So I went to the— I went to the mall to be a mall cop, and they said I was overqualified.

I'm like, well, how? I'm like, bro, I'm just trying not to bounce at a strip club, you know what I mean? I'm like, this is, uh, so I ended up landing a security job, and here I am in a cheesy polyester uniform walking around turning the key, all third shift. The first night I was like, this isn't bad. It was like a 4-star hotel. You're walking around, you turn the key, and that lets them know that you're hitting all your spots, and you got food, and it's nice. That was the first night. The next night they put me on an abandoned— well, it's abandoned on third shift— concrete plant on the Intracoastal Waterway. And it was me, God, and critters, and that was it. But it ended up being a great time because I needed to do some inner soul searching. I was heartbroken at the time, and, uh, man, it was good to be alone by myself. Well, not alone, but to be alone with God. And I would write, and I would just, you know, for 2 months. And then I was like, okay, enough of this, you know, I'm gonna go get a job.

And I bounced at a legitimate country club called Desperados at the time. It's not there anymore, but it was at that time, it was the largest dance floor in South Carolina.

They have bouncers at country clubs?

Oh yeah.

I did not.

Well, I mean, when I say country club, I don't mean like golf country club.

I mean, you mean a country bar?

Country bar. Yeah.

Sorry. Okay.

Bar. Yeah. Gotcha. Bouncers at a country club. I was like, wait, what? Yeah. Full contact golf. Yeah.

You got a guy with a sweater vest over here acting up.

Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's a— so, so I get a job at Desperados and I'm bouncing and I'm just biding my time. And then, then I got the call from Greenville County Sheriff's Office, which is the hometown I grew up in. Right on. And I went back and I went to the academy and then, yeah, '93 I went to the academy and came out. And started in uniform.

How was it?

Oh, loved it, loved it. My— I wouldn't really— wouldn't mind going back right now, really, at 55. Yeah, because once you pull out there, that's your office. You're in your car, you're going out and answering calls, hopping calls. Um, but if I do bond back in, I'm gonna have to go full circle because I bounced. I was a cop, I was a fed. So if I bond back in and I'm a cop Whenever that's done, I got to at least bounce for like 30 minutes.

Where would you bounce?

I don't know. Maybe I'd ask Cotton Eye Joe's. That's a country bar in Knoxville, Tennessee. Maybe I'd ask them.

I don't know. Right on. You got any good stories from bouncing?

Oh my goodness. Tons.

Let's hear some.

Yeah. So I kind of said it a second ago, but when I first started bouncing, I was bouncing in gentlemen's clubs. Which is an oxymoron because I've never seen any gentlemen in there in any of them. And neither was I then. I was living in the flesh, as they say, back then. But— and this is coming from a guy who's had all girls, you know, all girls, girl dogs, everything's female, you know, a lot of estrogen in the household. But yeah, I bounced there and I mean, it would be like 2 bouncers. And really, that's where I started learning my gift of gab and verbal judo, some people call it. Because if you go up and you've only got 2 bouncers, and let's just say there's 2 bachelor parties in there, 15 a party, you gonna take on 30 people? Are you gonna go up and push and go, hey, stop what you're doing, or spin them around? Are you gonna go, hey buddy, I know you're having a good time, but listen, you can't do that. Boss is gonna get mad. They want me to kick you out. All right. Baseball. One strike, two strike, three strikes, you're out.

Some people are obviously already out by the time you get to them. But, uh, yeah, uh, the Hells Angels would come to the bar, uh, I, I bounced that frequently. And, uh, I remember being in some knockdown drag-outs, being on the bottom of the pile, and I, and I'm hit every time I'm getting hit. I'm hitting the dude at the bottom of the pile. Pile starts getting lighter. And you look and it's the Hells Angels and they're breaking, they're taking everybody and they're carrying them out and whipping the trash out of them. And I'm like, I looked out and when I looked, the last thing I saw was they had one dude, one Hells Angel was holding the dude's head on the motorcycle seat and the other Hells Angel was coming up, kicking him right in the face. I just sat back up. I said, that'll be a $3 cover charge. Come on in.

Yeah.

So I got, I got that kind of exposure. And then you'd be in there bouncing and it's like another bouncer, two bouncers. Fight breaks out. Where were you? I was calling 911. The bartender can do that, man. The DJ can do that. You're supposed to be— where were you? I was stocking the cooler. Stocking. I'm starting to get this Clark Kent Superman thing, or this, you know, how come they're never in the same place at the same time? Yeah, it was good. And then, um, I moved on, like I said. And then bouncing at Desperados, there were some, there were some knockdown drag-outs there. There was one we caught that I think Charleston County referred to it as the Clampetts because it ended up being a whole family. It was after a Tanya Tucker concert and we had sectors, earpieces, we'd call it out. It was really cool because the DJ's booth was up in the roof, like you had to climb the ladder to get in it so they could see all across the bar. And, uh, it's two— an older guy and a younger guy were kind of getting verbal, a little pushy next to the mechanical bull.

And, uh, my buddy went to break it up. What we didn't realize is that was a father and son. And then here comes mom with the stiletto, bust my buddy's head wide open. Hey, I hear him say, get this bitch off me! He raises up, and as he raises up, blood is just pouring down his face. Now, I was young, didn't have as much control, not near as much fight training. So when I saw my best friend bleeding like that, I was like That shark, you know, that black. I was like, what? Choke slam and bam, we're fighting. You choke somebody out, they drop, then they wake back up and they're fighting again. And it was like, it lasted like 40 minutes. Holy shit. Clearly we didn't know. I mean, I'll just say the fight skills weren't as good. You know, we could have probably ended it quicker, but to get them to the door to Charleston County and then everybody got arrested. But it ended up being like, I mean, I think it was the son, the dad, the mom. There was a sister, a girlfriend, there was a wife. I got kicked square.

That's the first time I've ever been solidly kicked in the testicles. I mean, it was spot on. It was, it was right on. And I'd always heard up to that point in like self-defense training and stuff that I would hear instructors telling women specifically, listen, You can kick them in the nuts, but if their adrenaline's going, it might be bad. Unless you're doing like multiple strikes, like some Krav Maga, like we're doing multiple and we're not just hitting them one. We're coming bam, bam, bam, bam, bam to create distance and stuff. But I always heard, you know, if your adrenaline is flowing, it might not work. To which every guy would say, it's going to work. Guess what? It didn't work because the adrenaline was flowing so bad. When she kicked me, I was straddled trying to pick her up. And she was in it. She kicked it, and I mean, I felt my stomach pull and knot and just start pulling down. But because the adrenaline was so much, uh, it didn't— it did not stop me. Um, now let's just say an hour or two later, yeah, I was over there with the frozen peas, you know.

Yeah, I think I need to go to the hospital. But yeah, it was good times. It was really good times. Um, And then I got hired and became a cop in uniform patrol, man. It was great. I learned a lot. But after 3 years, I made vice and narcotics investigator, and that was, that was when the bug— that's when, that's when I go and I get certified at the state level, undercover techniques. And that's the first time I do a drug buy, at least for law enforcement. Because when I was younger, I did buy drugs, but it was for me. I had bought dope before. But yeah, now you're being trained by— I'm looking at people in the unit and I'm just like a kid, like I said, in the candy store. I'm just trying to be a sponge because there were some cool dudes in that narcotics unit and I'm just trying to learn. And apparently I didn't learn fast enough because I did I did get— you can't pick your own nickname, you know what I mean? But I got the nickname Little Bus.

How'd that happen?

I guess I wasn't learning fast enough. I would like to say it could have been some of the training, but yeah. And then I graduated to Busman, you know? Nice. And then I switched over from Northern Command Narcotics. I went back to uniform for a little bit. Because of a snafu with a former supervisor. And then I went to Southern Command Narcotics, and that's where I was at until I got picked up by the FBI.

What was the training like?

The training at FBI or before? It was awesome. I mean, the police academy I went through, I just thought about that. I went through the police academy during the winter months, and I went through the FBI Academy in the winter months. I guess that's my time. But, uh, always snow on the ground.

When you got undercover, I mean, did they—

Oh, I'm sorry, the undercover training?

Yeah.

Oh, it was good. I mean, it's a 1-week school. Um, you're probably not going as in-depth, but probably focusing more on like quick buys, quick scenarios. Because think of it this way, if you're a cop and let's just look at that situation. I've been a cop for 3 years. Now all of a sudden I'm a narcotics officer in the county that I live in. Where I've arrested a lot of people for 3 years, there's only so many ways you can do your facial hair or grow your hair or change your clothes and cars before you start getting known. So you're doing quick stuff like rolling up, buying a crack rock, driving around for 15 minutes, come back, buy another crack rock, hit, you know, go and buy weed and stuff like that. And we were also vice, so we were working gambling was illegal in South Carolina, uh, and prostitution.

So do you have a favorite?

I'm working dope. Working dope?

Yeah.

Why? Working, uh, just the— at that level, it was just the thrill. Just, I mean, it's fast-paced. We're jumps out, we're doing jump outs, roll up in the hood, high drug trafficking area, whatever. If there's a high drug trafficking area has been reported on a lot, roll up, jump out. Chase the jump out boys, 5-0 coming around the corner.

So would you go after— are you going after low-level street dealers? You're going—

it may be. Yeah, it may be. Now you try to work your way up, but think about it, as far as like going long-term undercover, if you're a task force officer and you're working with the feds and they can put you somewhere, yeah. But I would say it's going to be tough short of maybe like New York City where it's so populated, or maybe Miami, but it's going to be tough, I think. To go deep undercover where you've been known as a law enforcement officer. Now, when I moved to Tennessee, nobody knew me. I'd only been here 6 months before I went full-time undercover in a rural county in East Tennessee. I did that because, yeah, nobody knew me here. But once that case is done, yeah, I'm not— now I'm overt Scott Payne, and I'm probably not going to be doing any undercover in East Tennessee.

I mean, I've heard it's damn near impossible to do undercover work now at this point in time.

It's getting harder and harder with facial recognition and all that kind of shit. Exactly. I mean, with the— I mean, just picture facial recognition. Let's say I've got 3 different identities. Yeah, but I show up and then— or the system is going to catch it. It's going to be like, hey, this is the same dude. He got 3 different names, you know, something like that. Or going overseas.

That's— yeah, that's where I've heard that.

Yeah.

You're not even going to get a pseudo passport or—

Yeah. I mean, imagine— I thought about that when I retired. I'm like, I go overseas. What if I did? I mean, I didn't, but what if I did go covertly in the past and now I'm over there and that thing hits and says, oh, that's Scott Callaway, and I'm standing there, Scott Payne, you know, how do I explain that? Pretty sure I'm getting second-dared. Yeah.

So what kind of stuff are they teaching you? Is it all on the job training?

Yeah, it's like good operational security, probably. For that stuff, it's going to be more like how to do a controlled buy. So in other words, I'm going to be wired up. For me, it goes hand in hand in operating sources because somebody's going to surveil you. We're going to cover you to go in there. We're going to be listening. You're getting the evidence, you're coming back out, and then I'm turning it over. We got stuff like that. And then you learn some laws and then you might get the technical surveillance school. They kind of go together. Now I'm learning how to wire stuff up. Now I'm learning, like, I'm building coolers and putting cameras in them and stuff like that. But that was '93. I mean, technology now, who knows what they can do? A lot of people think we can do stuff we can't anyway because of TV. They think I've got like a— they think in this cross I've got a listening device. And I'm like, that's awful small. I don't know how many hours I'm going to get recorded. On that thing.

I always notice when somebody goes the extra step. It does not have to be some huge thing. It could be someone following up when they said they would, giving you a straight answer, or taking a little extra time to make sure the job gets done right. That sticks with you because it shows they actually care. And if you're hiring, that same thing matters. You don't just want someone qualified. You want someone who actually wants the job and is willing to go the extra step. That's where ZipRecruiter comes in. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job, which gives you a better read on who is really paying attention. And ZipRecruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly, and no wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based G2. Try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who go the extra step for your job. 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/srs. That's ziprecruiter.com/srs. ZipRecruiter.

Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. How would you get yourself into a gambling ring?

It could be a source introduction. Somebody who's already going gambling can invite me and go. But as far as working it, yeah, you develop sources and we would set up and do surveillance. Like, you go from being uniform patrol where everything's like this, and all of a sudden you're an investigator and you're sitting in a car for 12 hours or you're laying in the woods for 10 hours and watching, developing patterns. But after a while, maybe a month or so, now, you know, I can show up at 11:15 because at 11:30 they're going to come pick up their money. They do it every Monday, that kind of thing. And you start learning and develop sources and then get enough to get a warrant, search warrant and arrest warrants, and go in there and hit it.

How do you develop a source?

Oh, there's all kinds of ways. I'd say probably common, one of the most common in law enforcement is somebody gets arrested. They get arrested for something else, and maybe I'm arresting you and I'm talking to you and I'm like, hey, you know, you can help yourself out. You got any information on drug trafficking, anything like this? Oh man, you know, I know this gambling ring. Okay, you can do that. Um, sometimes they refer to that as you got a hammer over your head, like we're holding you on a charge, but you can help yourself. Um, or my favorite is just developing, developing a connection with somebody., and then they're doing it. I won't say out of the goodness of their heart, you know, but sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just patriotic. They just want to do it. Sometimes it's monetarily driven because I'm paying them, you know. How much would you pay them? It depends. Depends on where you're at, what the violation is, and who. I mean, obviously in the FBI you can get into some high-level sources where they're getting like $150,000, you know, for some big stuff. I'm sure you saw Similar stuff, right?

But there's all kinds of techniques. You can go to training, you can read stuff like interrogations, how to ask questions better. There's training like that. But for me, with sources, it was just— let's say I've got something I'm looking at, and let's say, let's go with the drugs. We got a high trafficking area. We know they're doing a lot of dealing. We can't get anywhere close. Maybe I can set up outside of there, have uniform patrol. There's a four-way stop sign on the way into that dope. How many people roll through a four-way stop sign? It's not hard to develop probable cause to pull the car over. Nobody drives perfect. You stay behind somebody long enough, there are so many traffic laws you can find something to pull them over for. Maybe now you get somebody with dope in their car and you say, where did you get it? And you're trying to develop it that way. I'm like, that's where I'm trying to get to. But I'm over here. When it was special interest alien smuggling on the border, I would go to the Border Patrol and I'd say, look, Border Patrol, ICE, whoever it may be, and I'm like, look, I'm specifically working the Doña Terry alien smuggling organization.

If you guys come across anybody you apprehend and they say they're being smuggled by her, call me no matter what time, because I'm trying to build a case. And I might get it that way. And it might be 2 in the morning and say, we got somebody and they're being smuggled by her organization. I'm like, cool, we're on our way. Go and start doing interviews and try to start building the case.

Right on.

Really, all you're doing is essentially you're trying to either show that yes, there are crimes being committed and you gather evidence of that and charge them, or you go in there and you go, there are no crimes being committed, but we proactively went and investigated it.

How about prostitution rings?

Uh, yeah, I mean, we did that. Um, That was eye-opening as, as a young narcotics vice and narcotics investigator, because I was like, you mean in high school I could have just came over here with $20 and I could have gotten this? I'm like, I'm not saying I would have done it, but I'm saying I'm glad I didn't know as a young kid. I'm like, whoa, I would probably would have made some bad decisions. But, uh, you go over there and we would, we would pick up the girls sometimes and roll through and get the prostitutes and then get them locked up. And then we would put our women out there and we would pick up the johns coming. Now, that's super— there's been very bad things that have happened on cases like that where the cover team loses the female and something bad happens. So you got to be— there's nothing to be lax about at all. You got to have some choke points set up, have a reaction team ready. Eyes on all the time, especially if they get in a car with somebody. There's all kinds of things you got to think about.

But I will say that it was eye-opening for me at that age and that level of knowledge to see who was coming. Really?

What do you mean by that?

Preachers, pastors, elected officials, you know, you're like, wow, no way, politicians. What? I know. It's crazy.

The most stand-up human beings in the fucking world.

No, U.S. politicians. Next thing you're going to tell me, the drugs are coming across the border. What? This is ridiculous. No way.

That's absurd. Politicians wouldn't get a prostitute.

Oh man. Yeah, but that— like I said, at that point in my lifetime, it was shocking. Later on, I'm like, you know, actually very good source potential if you— I mean, think of who's— what a street worker may have knowledge of. A lot of stuff on the street. Yeah. You know, did you ever arrest any, like, public figures, like politicians, ministers, whatever? I know I've been on I know I've been on arrest teams. Not my case personally, though, but like big roundups or whatever. Yeah.

Or were there people that were off limits that you just had to let them go?

Not to my knowledge.

The mayor?

Not to my knowledge. Not to my— not to my knowledge. But I will say on a local level, there were times where you arrest somebody and everybody always says, I know the sheriff, I'm going to call him. Well, you can call him. And tell him that Scott Payne has you in handcuffs and you're going to jail. But there were times where the phone call did work and it was like, let him go. I'm like, all right, you know, I mean, you're signing the checks, you know, you do see some of that. But for the most part, for me, I didn't see any— I didn't see anything like that, like untouchables. I'm sure it happens, you know, I'm not naive, but me personally, no.

What about, you know, you were talking about females going undercover as prostitutes. Did you ever— were you ever on a case where one of those went wrong?

Not me personally, but I have seen females. I've known females that go out and speak, and I've got peers that run undercover training, and they have people that have happened. It's just, again, I mean, think about it. If you lose the eyeball on that person or they hop in that car, dude takes off. I mean, it's— I don't know. I don't know how they do it now, um, because in the Bureau when I was doing anything like that, it was more in the hotel room, or we're going out. We're answering that when it was all on Backpage and stuff like that. We're going, and, uh, it's Operation Cross Country, uh, is where we're out there and we're trying to— we're not, we're not necessarily trying to charge a prostitute. It's not a federal crime anyway. We're trying to recover underage boys and girls being trafficked, and we're trying to go after the pimps and the traffickers themselves. That happens a lot, huh? Yeah. So, yeah, usually there's always a pimp. Like, I've even actually believed— I'm like, nah, this one doesn't have a pimp. And they follow her out when she leaves. She gets in the car with the pimp.

I'm like, dadgummit, she was lying to me and I believed it, you know. But then, then we try to get them or try to uncover information.

Why do they all have a pimp?

I, I think for me, I believe it would be more so if you don't have a pimp, you might be getting in trouble. Like the pimp, maybe somebody's like, hey, that's my corner, that's my territory. Who's representing you? If nobody's representing you, well, then you better get some representation or this is going to happen to you. Every day, blah, blah, blah.

Gotcha.

And there's madams, you know, like the escort services. I'm— I was calling and we were ordering up and they had different numbers. They had different numbers. You just send it like Yellow Pages or something. But this— so there's just different escort services listed or whatever, and you're calling. Well, they're, they're like on a trunk line. They're all going. It's like AAA Escort Service, Mom's Escort Service. But we're calling. And even though it's a different number, I guess they've got a bank. Or something, and it was the same woman.

Gotcha.

And they'd be like, where are you from? And I'd say, I'm from the South. Can't you hear my accent? Yeah. What are you doing up here? You know, whatever my story is. And finally, the madam, the madam that runs the escort service gets on the phone with us. She goes, Scott, I just talked to you a minute ago. And I go, what? All right, listen, clearly, you know, we're not after you. We're trying to find other, you know, clearly this room's burned, you know, but I'm like, How, how many? Can you tell me how many of these businesses are you so I don't call you anymore tonight? You know, you know, I'm like, I'm sorry. You know, we're just trying to work, you know? Oh, shit. She goes, quit calling. I said, I'm not. This is like the 5th place I called and you get on the phone and then I call another one and it'd be like, I'd go, hey, I was trying to go, it's still us, Scott. That gummit. I'd hang up, you know, like the Somali Learning Centers up in Minnesota. They don't— they're not legit.

No, I'm sure they're legit.

I'm sure. I'm sure.

Damn. So how'd the FBI pop on your radar then?

Uh, my sergeant— when I went to Southern Command, my sergeant, Sergeant Kellett, uh, former Marine, built like a bulldog, Popeye forearms, had the Fu Manchu, looked like a bulldog. And at that time, my nickname was Kingpin. And we were on a long surveillance one day, and he said, Kingpin, if I was young like you and I had a 4-year degree and I was single, he said, I'd apply for the FBI and I'd put New York down as my office. And I said, dude, what are you smoking? Because at that time, I didn't realize everything the FBI worked. I knew they worked bank robberies. That's the only time I thought I ever saw them, really. Um, I didn't know the FBI worked everything, Title 21 and Title 18. I mean, you want to work alien smuggling, you want to work drug trafficking, you want to charge felony in possession, Got it all. And he told me that it was harder to get hired by them. It was a harder hiring process. And I'm not knocking any other agency before I get hate mail or get texts from my friends who are from other agencies. But that's what I'd heard.

And I applied with them first once he started saying that to me. And it was funny because I started looking and really I was looking at where I was going to be in 5 years because at that point I was at the sheriff's office for almost 5 years. And this happens almost everywhere. It wasn't just Greenville County. County Council would give themselves raises, but they weren't giving the cops raises. It got so weird because the entry-level pay, if you came in as a brand new officer, it was going up, but we weren't getting raises. So it might pass you. Like, you could literally quit, come back with a 4-year degree and make more money than you're making. And if you looked at it, you were never going to max out before retirement. There wasn't any way. So we started doing like almost protests. We would show up at the county council meetings. Full uniform. If you weren't on duty, show up in your uniform, mass numbers, bring the knees. And they finally started giving us some raises. But I just looked at where would I be financially? And it's clearly, it's not all about money.

Why would I go into law enforcement? But I looked at the FBI and in 5 years, as long as you don't get fired and really as long as you don't lie under inquiry, I mean, I've seen, I mean, maybe things are different now. I don't know. I don't know how they are now. I retired 5 years ago, like I said. But as long as you don't lie, you might get dinged, you might get 30 days on the bricks, you might get demoted, but you're not going to get fired. So at 5 years, you'll be a GS-13, and that's pretty good pay. And then you would max out at 13-10 before you retire. And that's what I did. I maxed out at 13-10. But I was looking and I started applying, and I remember the hiring process, like the physical fitness test, that was cool. I dieted down back then. I was a bigger, bigger boy, but I dieted down to 252 and I went in with like 9% body fat.

Damn.

Yeah, I felt jacked. But as soon as I could, as soon as I got out of Quantico, I was back eating and lifting like I normally did, and I was back to like 275, you know. But I applied, I took the test. Phase 1 is like a lot of questions and a lot of big math part, and then there's something else. And I remember going in there, Sean, I was like, I'm looking and I'm dressed up, but I showed up with long hair and a beard because I told them, I said, do I need to cut my hair to do this Phase 1 test? And they said, are you doing actual undercover? Buys right now? I said, yeah. I said, matter of fact, whenever I finish the test, I'm driving back and going on shift tonight. I'm probably gonna make a cocaine buy somewhere, you know. And they said, then you can keep your hair that way. So I was getting eyes looking at me anyway, right? So you got military people applying, they're in their full uniform, they're in their dress uniform. You got accountants, lawyers. That math part, I was like, I know I said I had a 3.8, I don't remember any of this.

I tried to study geometry and algebra again and all this stuff, and I was like, when we come walking out of the math section, I'm looking at accountants going, there's no way I passed that. And I'm looking, I'm like, well, I'm not even going to sweat it then, because if you didn't pass it, I know I didn't pass it, man. And it turns out I passed. I don't know if that portion was in there just to rock you mentally. Like, you do all these questions like, no, I don't think my mom's sexy. No, I'm not fascinated with fire. No, I don't like harming small animals. 400 questions later, maybe you slip up and say, actually, I do like harming small animals. You know, they do that, the psychological stuff. And then they break you with like a math thing and you come walking out going, I don't know. And then you come back with more 500-something questions. So maybe you slip up and it shows up. But I did that. I did the polygraph. I told you I applied with 4 different— 3 sheriff's offices and North Charleston Police Department. Um, so a polygraph on every one of them.

Uh, the FBI polygraph, wow, was it way more thorough. I think I was in the box, the chair, for 3 and a half hours, and I wasn't lying. I'm like, I don't know what you want me to tell you, man. I don't know what's skipping. I don't know, you know.

What are they asking you?

Uh, drugs, prostitution? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is, this is the funny part. So I'm a narcotics officer at the time. So the question was, have you done any illegal narcotics in the last 10 years? And I said, it's going to be close. And they were like, what? I said, well, right at the 10-year mark, I said, I did like Diana Ball. I said, but it was like 8cc. No, I can't remember how much was in it, but I stretched it over. It was like 10cc and I stretched it over 8 weeks. I'm like, I was like, it's not even— I didn't know what I was doing. It's not enough to make my Bassett hound any bigger, you know? But I didn't know what I was doing. And they go, no, that's fine. And then, uh, so that's the question: any illegal narcotics in the last 10 years? And I said no. Done. Next question: have you smoked marijuana in the last 3 years? Again, that's not now, this is 1993. Oh, sorry, '98. I'm getting hired by the FBI, '98. Uh, narcotics officer, I know what's illegal. Uh, yeah, I got you. Well, now I did that.

Yeah, I didn't know. But he goes, have you, have you smoked marijuana in the last 3 years? And I was like, is that a trick question? He said, no. I said, dude, marijuana is an illegal narcotic. I just told you I haven't done any illegal narcotics in the last 10 years. And he says, oh, well, you could have smoked weed up until 3 years ago. And I went, okay, no, answer's still no. And then he's like, um, well, how many times would you say you smoked it? So this is where it got way more thorough. It's like, yes, I've smoked weed before, but it was like, did you— I mean, it starts breaking it down like, did I package it? Where did I store it? Did I buy it? Did I give it to anybody? Did I sell it to anybody? And I'm like, bro, I can answer all your questions with just a few statements. I said, I was the guy that would give money and then somebody would go get the dope and it would come back to the party. You smoke what you could and then it would go— whatever's left goes with somebody else.

I said, one time One time I brought it home and I hid it. And this is— my parents already divorced. I'm with Mom. I hid it and it was like the Telltale Heart, that story, man. I hid it and I was like, I'd wake up going— or that, that commercial where the dog keeps burying the bone and hiding it. I'm like, she's gonna find it. And I'd go put it somewhere else. I'd lay down, I go, she'll find it there. I'd go move it somewhere. I bet y'all moved it 20 times. I didn't sleep. And I'm like, I'm never bringing weed to my house again. You know, but when I did that, he says he's answered me.

I've heard it makes you paranoid.

Yeah, it can. Yeah, I like it now. Retired, retired. They're like, you know, if you hit the sativa, it's going to jack you up. You may have to take like a lorazepam or something. I go, weed that jacks you up that you have to take a lorazepam? That makes no— Yeah, that's not why you do it. Anyway, but, uh, so he's asking me, and I said, listen, I would put my money in this, that, and the other. I said, I brought it home one time. I said, I've actually bought it at the place once or twice. And he's like, well, how many times would you say you smoked? And I'm like, I don't know, man, it was like, it's been since like 1989, you know? And he's like, he goes, well, would you say no more than 15? And I went, yeah, sounds good. Then he jumps on the table, bam! You think this is a joke? You think that? And while he's yelling at me now, I'm panicking in my head. I'm like, 15 joints, 15 nights, 15 I don't know. And I'm like, I don't know, man. 15. 15 sounds good. But in my head I'm thinking, okay, no illegal narcotics in 10 years, with the exception of weed within 3 years and no more than 15 times.

How'd you come up with those numbers? And I'm thinking, whose kid needed to be hired? Yeah, that had smoked weed in the last 3 years, but no more than 15 times. How do you come up with those numbers? So anyway, it's pretty funny, but I passed clearly. And then you do another phase 2, which is like interviews and stuff. And if you're blessed, or I consider it blessed, I got the letter saying, hey, you've been selected, new agents class, blah, blah, blah, be in Quantico 927 of '98.

Right on.

Bam. And then I'm there.

How was training?

I liked it. I liked it. It was, it was cool because they have different dorm rooms there. But the Jefferson dorm, you get your own room. The Madison and Washington dorms, which at that time one of those was being used by DEA before they built their own academy at Quantico. But those were suites and, you know, two bed, two bedroom, share a bathroom thing. And it was so packed when we got there. Our class actually got the Jefferson dorm, so you had your own room. At one point they were talking about moving us back and I went to the counselors. I'm like, I've been a cop, been on teams and stuff. I'm like, other than us being on different floors, I said, this is the same thing. Everybody's door is propped open. They were worried about the camaraderie and would that affect— we want that whole team concept. I said, it's a team concept. So we stayed there and it was good. But I call that place the biodome. I've been in that thing for 3 or 4 days and realized I haven't been outside. I've not had one breath of fresh air because you go from your room to the cafeteria to class, maybe to your room, to the cafeteria, to class, go to the gym.

If you did do PT, you ran outside. But other than that, I mean, I've been walking around and go, holy crap, I've been in this thing for 3 days like a gerbil, you know, in a gerbil tunnel. I got to get— and then you like bust the door and be like, ah. Give me some fresh air. But it was good. I had a really good time. And again, I went through the winter months, so our Yellow Brick Road run got snowed out, but we went on a nice long point run in the snow. It was fun.

Nice.

I wasn't the fastest, but my instructor Crawford, he was like 6'9". Crawford, he would tell me, hey, big fella, you think you could bring up the back? You know, because we'd have some stragglers getting strung out and I'd do that, you know, come up. It'd be me and like, like I'm not the best in shape. I'm the biggest on paper for my class. But you see, coming up that gravel road, have about 4 or 5 stragglers.

Come on.

Yeah, yeah. Get up that hill. I'm like, what do you weigh? £120? You should be— you should have finished 10 minutes ago. Get your butt up there.

What kind of stuff? I mean, what did you want to do in the FBI? Did you want to go undercover again?

Yeah, definitely undercover. Dope. SWAT. I did get New York City, oddly enough. You have 56 field offices, so you list them 1 through 56. But really, in my mind, after all the years, I'm like, they should just let you list your top 10. And if you don't get your top 10, send me where you're going to send me. 'Cause man, you rack your brain, you're like, okay, I don't want them to think this. I'm gonna start southeast, I'm gonna work my way up the East Coast, and then I'm gonna end over here. I don't want to be out in Alaska. I want to, you know, it's— and we all say a joke that they got a monkey, they blindfold and just let him throw a dart at the map. And that's what you get, that blind monkey back there throwing it. But in '98, We go by the fiscal year, like October, right? So in '98, at the beginning of the year, FBI had been loading up Washington field office because of the Africa embassy bombings. So at the end of the year, your big offices like Chicago, LA, New York, San Fran, they're all screaming going, hey, we need bodies.

So the last 3 classes of the fiscal year we got hit and 15 out of my class got New York City. I had New York was like 36 on my 1 through 56. I just worked my way up, but I got New York. And then you go there and it's because it's the biggest field office and it's a big city. They put you through like a rotation. You don't just get right on the squad. You're going to work the applicant squad to give you time to learn the city, how to get to work, where your placard works, where it doesn't. Shortcuts. But it also is a time where you can pawn yourself off to help other squads because there's always arrests going on. And I immediately started working into the dope squads. I went to the— they had a drug branch prior to 9/11, had a drug branch. And, um, I mean, you had an Italian drug squad, um, an Asian drug squad, We had C-33, which I think was mostly Black gangs, but we had a Colombian and Dominican squads, uh, Haida. It was, it was big. And I went over there and started saying, hey man, I'll help.

This is my background. I'll help whatever you need. Would love to get, you know. And that's what I started doing. And I'd be the first one there, last one to leave, um, pull surveillance, do paperwork, whatever you want me to do to kind of earn a name for myself. And then when it came time to go to an actual squad, um, they were going to put me on— they were going to put me on a foreign counterintelligence squad, which for me at that point in time would have been like watching paint dry. I was— been fish out of water stuff. But the supervisor that had been over me said, hey, now this guy, he's, he's got a good drug background, he needs to be going to the drug branch. And they put me on I was told I was going to the HIDTA squad, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area squad. And I got a phone call from the supervisor of the Colombian drug squad that I'd worked with a good bit. And he said, hey, I just wanted you to know that I found out you're going to HIDTA. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, well, I'm in pretty good with the ASAC and the SAC.

They like our squad a lot. And I'm just calling you because I remember you saying you'd like to come to our squad. And I'm just letting you know I can make that happen. But if you want to go to HIDA, I mean, you go. I'm like, I'm not an idiot. I mean, got a supervisor calling saying he wants you. You know, I said, absolutely, I'd love to come. Call me a drug squad. And that's what I got. And that's why I was on for 3 years. And I landed an undercover. I was already doing cameos. And what do you mean? Like a— well, cameos. It's like just like a cameo in a TV show or something. It's like I'm not going deep undercover. For instance, let's say LA takes off 3,000-pound weed shipment or a cocaine shipment and they pop it there, but they know that it was supposed to come to New York City. Well, they cut a lead. We get on the phone and we're like, okay, we need to know what the package looks like, all that stuff. We make the package the same way. And now we can go deliver that package to the targets that we're going to get it.

And it depends on your— it depends on the assistant United States attorney you're working with. Some may want more evidence. Some may be happy with just this much. Like, hey, you deliver it, they take control of it, pop them. Some may be like, no, I want to actually know that they were planning on opening it. Okay, well, how do we do that? Maybe we build something with a switch in it. So we deliver it, and me and another NYPD detective, Cameo, we roll up. I'm not showing you ID, I'm not doing all that. It's just rolling up, delivering it, drop it off, and then the team's waiting. And when the thing gets popped, they said, hey man, they just pop the box and then go in and arrest everybody. Right on, right on.

So you remember your first big bust, uh, in the FBI, man?

So in New York, you would get big licks. I do remember seeing— the first time I saw like 100,000+ ecstasy pills, I didn't realize how much floor space that would cover. I was like, that is a lot of pills. Walk in, it looks like Froot Loops are everywhere. I'm like, goodness gracious, that's a lot of pills. Um, Saw some decent seizures of cocaine too, but I leave New York, uh, and I got a specialty undercover transfer. I was actually assigned to New York when 9/11 happened, but the day of 9/11 I was undercover in San Antonio, Texas. So as soon as I could fly commercially, as soon as they opened up the airwaves, I flew back and helped cover some leads down at Ground Zero and stuff. But I— but my transfer was already kind of in motion at that point, and my My boss, who said— Joe Demarest, he said, hey, Columbia Drug Squad, I can make it happen. When 9/11 happened, he was the acting ASAC, and he ended up running pretty much the command post and everything. So he told me, he pulled me aside and he said, listen, go out there, work with your brothers and sisters.

Don't pick up anything though, because if you get wrapped into this, they're going to cancel your transfer. He said, go out, work. But in other words, don't pick up a case because you'll lose your transfer. Gotcha. So I appreciated that. And then I went to the border. So you go to the border, one of the first things we get called out on, it's like £3,000 of weed.

Um, £3,000.

Yeah, I mean, you're on the border. Yeah, you're on the border. But I say that, but picture somebody working in Miami or one of these big ports and they pop a hole of a ship and you got like, I don't know, 1,000 kilos of cocaine. You're like So the bigger the stuff, you know, bigger you might— £3,000 in South Carolina would at that point in time would have been ginormous. It would have been a huge bust. But on the border, you know, you can just—

£3,000 of weed, look, what is it, a semi?

No. I'll tell you what, I had an extended cab, long bed Chevy. We loaded that thing. I mean, I'm literally in the truck, weed over my head right here. Driving like this, and we loaded another truck. So yeah, I mean, they were in big bales, you know, and then bullet casings everywhere because it was a RIP. They call them pseudo cops. So you got cartel or gangs, and what they're doing is they'll go get the uniforms, they'll have the exact same year, model, make of either the ambulance or the Border Patrol truck. Paint it exactly the same, and they ride around doing hits. So what that particular case I'm talking about was, it was a rip. They came over like they were the police. Hey, police, policía, abre la puerta, you know, open the door, all this other. But it's a rip. They're not real cops. They're either a gang or cartel members, and they're ripping them. And I mean, there was blood trails everywhere. And, you know, now you're trying to figure out the case, who's where. Checking the hospitals. And you're like, check the hospitals in Mexico. And then the Mexican officials, through our liaisons, go over and they do their interrogation.

They got a confession. But the report I read said they took the pencil and stuck it in the gun wound and twisted it, and that's when the guy confessed. And I'm like, yeah, we can't do that here in the States. That's called— we have a Constitution. I can't do that. That would be, that'd be bad. But I appreciate you getting the confession, you know, in another country.

So do you like San Antonio or New York better working?

Uh, working, I will say, I would say the San Antonio division. I was down in McAllen, um, on the border. I will say that because that's where I learned how to really be a case agent from beginning to end. I love New York, I had a good time, but for really the whole third year I was undercover. So the 2 years you're on a big squad and you're new, you don't know how to take a case from beginning to end. Even though I was previously a cop and an investigator. But maybe I'm the guy that's young with no family and I'll stay out on the late hours with the surveillance squad, you know, with the NYPD detectives. And then maybe we got a case and it's like, hey, Scott, back— because back then they were still using beepers.. So I would go down to World Trade Center weekly and because there was a beeper place in there, I can't remember which one it was. I don't know if it was Motorola or what, but you had to get a court order and stuff and maybe a search warrant. I don't know if we had to get a search warrant back then for it, but clone the beeper.

So bad guy's beeper, we go there, clone it. So every beep you're getting sent to you, I'm getting a copy of it and I'm over here and I'm breaking down. Oh, okay. I'm breaking down their code. I'm like, all right, so that's a kilo. All right, they're meeting this dude at 44th or whatever, you know, 144th. And so you do good on that case. Well, the next case opens up and they go, hey man, Scott was great with surveillance and doing the beeper thing. Let's let him do that again. So you might get pigeonholed. And I just didn't, I just didn't get enough time to, uh, work a case from beginning to end on my own. When I got to McAllen, yeah, that's when I do that first. When you do your first case and you're putting it together for prosecution and you're looking at the binder going That's pretty thin. I'm like, man, I should have taken more pictures. I should have made more recordings. But by, by third case, it's airtight. Right on.

Let's take a break and then we'll get into some more on—

boom—

work down on the border.

Let's do it.

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So I did do undercovers while I was there, but they were out of town. I was a case agent as well. So a lot of people, I think one of the misconceptions is a lot of people think if you're undercover, you're undercover full time. We do have that. In my experience, it's very rare. So you're still an agent. On a squad. So if I'm in McAllen and I leave for a week to go do an undercover somewhere, when I come back, my boss is expecting me to be a case agent, not just an undercover. And they're looking at their squad going, hey, I know you're doing undercover over here, but that doesn't give me credit on my squad. And we got these measures and marks we got to hit. So I just tried to be a go-getter, be a big hitter on the squad. Have big cases, you're not able to concentrate on one specific thing full time. It's rare in my experience. I mean, now, Jack Garcia— Jack Garcia was in New York City. I think he was pretty much working nonstop undercover. But New York City is the largest office we got. So maybe it's a little easier to kind of, yeah, blend or fade away, you know what I mean?

Like, but if— I mean, I get it. If I'm a manager of a squad and I know, I know our threats are this and we need to be working them. And I know, even especially if you know somebody who is a good worker, and they're a ghost. They're not at their desk and they're not working. So my MO kind of was— actually, it is my MO. It's been my whole career, is to try to be above average. Not— you can't be better than everybody. I mean, maybe you can. I don't know. I'm just saying, try to be above average. So if I am succeeding and I'm one of the top producers as far as cases, sources being developed, I felt like that gave me a tool to argue back to management to say, hey, let me go to this SWAT call-out, let me do this SWAT school, let me participate at the undercover school, let me do this undercover, and you're going to see that I'm not going to slip, that you're going to still have these stats and stuff. And that's what I did, and until sometimes to my own detriment. But, um, but when I was down there, I was working a lot of cartel stuff.

Obviously, when I got there as a case agent working drugs, And then this new thing started coming up and it was basically, it's called special interest alien smuggling. So we're kind of working alien smuggling organizations, but what we're looking for is anybody being smuggled into the United States from a threat country. So China, Russia, things like that. And that's what you're looking for. So it's the same cartel. When I was down there, Osiel Cárdenas was the head of the Gulf Cartel. And as violent as it was, at least there was some kind of SOP. They have some kind of standard order procedures, right? Like if they kidnap somebody and we get hold of it, as the FBI gets a hold of it, now I'm over here and I'm calling, you know, you call into my squad and maybe I get the call and it's like, hey, my son's been kidnapped, the cartel's got him. And they tell them they're going to kill him if we give them this, we don't give them money. And what I would do is I would come back back on those cases, and I'd say, look, I need you to be honest with me because I'm not doing a drug investigation.

I'm working an investigation trying to get your son back who's been kidnapped and you're being extorted, right? Um, but I need to know the truth. Is there dope involved? And it starts— the lies start. I'm like, listen, if you lie, I'm gonna hang up the phone. Be truthful. I'm telling you, I know you may not trust me, but this is what— this is what we're trying to figure out. And then it would come out that, yeah, sometimes, um, Dopes missing. Like, uh, one of the last big ones I worked there, uh, is my case. Uh, 3— I say kids, they were like 19, 20, 21. Uh, they were in way over their head. What they were doing was muling, but they would be told by the cartel, drive this car, and it would drive from McAllen to Dallas. Well, they're being followed by the cartel. When it gets to Dallas, they stop at a a mall. So the kids go in the mall and they stay there. Cartel member gets in that car, they go to the chop shop or wherever they're going, they open up the trap, they take the dope out, put the money in, they go get the kids.

Kids now— they— kids drove dope up, they don't know what's in the car. Drive— I mean, you know, you're in a dope game, sure, but drive back, don't know how much money. So what happens is they get back and there's like $100,000 missing out of the car. Or the trap. So they kidnap the kids, and that's when we get involved. And the way it would work is, like I said, I'm calling, I'm with the family, tell me the truth. I'm going over there because we used to operate, we, we knew that we really only had the battery life of the phone of the victim because the cartel wasn't big on recharging the phone, and they're using that phone to call and make the demands, right? So, um, We're working it. I call the— we have a border liaison officer, and that border liaison officer— we have liaisons in Mexico, whether it's a comandante, cop, um, uh, elected official, whatever, military. And we would call and I say, look, person's name is this, it happened at such and such time at this street corner and this street corner. They said it was like 3 Suburbans rolled up, all blacked out.

Some dudes with BDUs jumped out, grabbed this guy named such and such. Around this time. Within 30 minutes to an hour, you get a call back from the border liaison officer. Yep, they got him. It's the cartel. Well, what's the deal? Well, they want— they always come in like, we want $300 grand. Okay, so you broker a deal is what you do. You got— I go in there with the family, I'm like, do you got $300 grand? No, they don't have it. $100 grand? We don't have it. Well, what do you got? We can come up with $60 grand. What else you got? The cartel was big on, uh, on the border. It was if you had a 4x4 V8 or a Harley, they were getting stolen all the time. So it's like, hey, let's say it's 2006, got a 2005 Chevy Tahoe, 4x4 V8. Okay, cool. Midnight, there goes the Tahoe with the $60 grand. Here comes a kid across— these kids across, you know, we work stuff like that all the time. Um, but we did get those kids back because what— on that particular case, what happened was There's a last stretch of 281.

You're in McAllen and you're headed to the border, and there's a lot of used car lots. Well, sometimes some people working in those car lots might be, I don't know, acquaintances with the cartel, right? It was nothing to have cartel living in your neighborhood, man. But wind came out that when the car came back, there was two— the cartel members was an old guy. They call him El Águila, the Eagle, and a younger kid that just kind of like just starting out. And somebody started calling and said, hey, that old guy, he just came over here and bought two cars. You know, like, bought two cars? Yeah, I think he's got a new apartment or something too. All right. He's, he's just blowing money that he's never been blowing before. So he puts a target on his back. They go and they press the young kid. The cartel does press the young kid, press the old guy. Old guy doesn't break. Young kid breaks and says, hey, yeah, he wanted me to take it with him. I said, absolutely not. And the last, last information I got was they had chopped either both of his hands or at a minimum, his fingers off, and he was cooked alive in a 55-gallon drum.

Holy shit.

I can't remember if it was acid or diesel fuel. They did both back then, but it was called El Guiso. It's soup. They're making you into soup. So I guess if you work for the cartel, don't steal from the cartel. Yeah, but Ozil had all kinds of crazy things. He had a common— uh, yeah, back then. Yeah, yeah.

Um, lots of kids getting cooked.

Uh, well, it was a common technique that they might use. I mean, Texas Syndicate would do it too. That's a gang, but they We've seen them light people on fire and burn them alive too. It's just violent. And I'm careful because I don't want people to go, oh, you're saying all the Mexicans— no, I'm not saying that at all. I love Hispanic culture. I've got numerous Hispanic friends still down there. But the cartel, yeah, it was violent. I mean, he had a lion he fed people to, and that was confirmed. It wasn't by me, but I remember the word came back. I can't remember if they were in a fixed-wing plane or in a helicopter. Liaisoning and they're flying over and it was like you see a big lion in a cage and you're like, man, those bones, what are all these bones in that cage? And like, oh yeah, pollo, it's chicken. Pretty big chicken, pretty big bones. Damn, looks a little more like a femur, but I'm not, you know, who am I? Who am I to judge, you know? And then, uh, this is sick. I don't know, I don't know if I've heard people get like vulgarly gross on your show before, but, um, it's true.

Uh, he had a—

it's pretty graphic on this show.

Yeah. Okay, good. He, uh, he had a little person, midget. I don't know, they were calling him a midget. I don't want to offend anybody, but he had a midget who was apparently blessed in the nether regions, and he used that guy to rape people as part of torture. Because when you get kidnapped, I mean, it was big on like They'll take kilos, which is a 2.2-pound brick, hitting you in the head with it. Cigar burns all over you, electrocute stuff. That was big back then. I don't know what they do now, but, um, we always thought it was a wives' tale. But one Christmas Eve, uh, I was actually driving to Arizona with my wife and kids, and I got a lot of sources, and we started getting calls. And what happened was, is a guy goes and carjacks a vehicle and drives right into Mexico and tries to sell to the cartel. Well, he didn't look in the back. There's an infant in the back seat. So now the cartel's pissed because he's bringing heat that doesn't need to be there and he's an idiot. So they are threatening to kill him. And then we get that call, hey, they got my son, they're going to kill him, blah, blah, blah.

And we're doing the whole brokering thing. I've got sources reporting stuff. I'm coordinating while I'm driving because I was a senior guy.. And when they get the guy back, he comes across the bridge bawling. And they called me and they're like, dude, the midget's real. I'm like, what? They're like, yeah. They said he came across and he was crying. And they said when the call came in, like FBI, like, hey, okay, we're on the phone, we got the money, we're ready, let's meet. The midget was in the room. The guy was crying. He was getting ready.

He was getting ready to be tortured a little bit, get raped by a midget.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So about the time I was transferring out of there, or maybe shortly thereafter, the Department of Justice— I say we took off Osiel Cardenas, and I don't know what anybody else's thoughts on it are, but I don't think we ever pictured that you take that guy off, it created a vacuum. So even though it was violent, we had this, hey, it's FBI case. You don't want us to shut down the border. Let this kid come back, blah, blah, blah. We had that kind of thing going. And even if they did, they did cough up— the cartel coughed up 2 undocumented aliens coming from Yemen because they came in and asked the wrong people. And the cartel's like, we don't want this kind of heat. Hey, FBI, we got 2 people, you know. But when we took him off, It created a vacuum, and now everybody's starting to compete for power. Because under the Gulf Cartel at that time, the enforcement arm were the Zetas, Z-E-T-A-S, paramilitary, must have been trained. Those are the ones pulling up in the suburbans, jumping out, grabbing you. They're the ones that are collecting the quotas. If you smuggle dope or undocumented aliens, you have to pay a quota to the cartel.

I think at least when I was there, it was like every 2 weeks you had to pay. If you didn't pay, They'll kidnap you. I've had sources get kidnapped and held and tortured. I've had targets, same thing happened to them until they can pay up their money. How would they torture them? Same, same. One of them, she was, she was tough. She was tough. She's a— they threatened to rape her with like 20 guys or something. And she was an older lady. She's like, she's like, and I mean, she was, she was tough. She's like, holy shit. And they were like, Oh, um, but yeah, that— the burning, the, uh, smacking, you know, hitting you in the head, stuff like that. Um, but what happened is Osiel gets taken out, and now the Zetas are like, well, we're the ones getting all the stuff, we should be running this, we're going to take over. Then you got somebody trying to move up in the Gulf Cartel. Then you got Sinaloa Cartel coming in saying, no, we're going to take this spot. You got MS-13 saying, no, we're going to take this spot. And the last I talked to people that were down there working it, it just got to the point to where the extortions and the time frame and the money and stuff, they were just falling through because they were just chopping people's heads off because everybody's fighting for territory.

So if a nice vehicle, nicer vehicle rolls into this town and this town is being run by Zetas and we go, well, you're not one of us, but you got to be somebody because you're in a decent vehicle. Innocent bystanders have been killed. I had a friend of mine in East Tennessee. He grew up doing— his parents were doing missions, and he was familiar with this one village, and it's south of McAllen, going through there. But he asked me if I could check because the family had lost contact. And I reached out, and the border liaison officer at the time was a friend of mine, and they did some research, and he'd been— it's one of those deals. And a vehicle couldn't explain— we're not cartel, we're not Sinaloa, we're not Zaytus and it's 6 heads.

Damn.

6 heads in a car.

Do you see a lot of that?

Uh, a decent, decent amount. Like actually seeing it, looking at it, not necessarily, but the videos and stuff were starting to come. They were starting to mimic, you know, Isis. Yeah, yeah, the live sawing, man. Like just slow motion, rusty blade. You can hear the girdle. That's— yeah, sick.

Man, did you see a lot of human trafficking down there too?

Yeah, I mean, that's what— I mean, that is smuggling. Yeah, essentially. I get— we have a huge problem with the human trafficking stuff. I get a little muddy in my head sometimes because I've— I, I could take you storytelling or experience-wise from the border all the way to the hotel room, right? But If it's a, if it's an adult and they are choosing to be an escort, is that human trafficking? Or if that's the way they are now, maybe, which is what we found a lot, or my experience with a lot was they were brought in underage, but they're of age now.

Yeah.

So they were trafficked early on and now this is all they do. But Yes, they were. There were different organizations. Like, certain organizations had good reputations. Like, hey, if you're getting kids smuggled in, you want Doña Tetty. You want her because she always takes care of the kids. Everybody loves her. As opposed to an organization that just drugs up the kids with, um, Benadryl, and then everybody's rolling through the checkpoint all drugged up, and you don't know if they're going to get dumped or not. So, I mean, it's still— I mean, it's a business model, right? You want somebody good. Um, but there are some that'll take the girls and, and push them right into human trafficking or that indentured servitude thing. You know, we saw that a lot in, uh, Philly on some cases I worked up there with my buddies. Um, saw it in New York. You would see like the brothels and stuff where people got smuggled in, but now they're having to work off. So yeah, it's trafficking. But yeah, I mean, the border, it's— I mean Dope and people.

Yeah. Yeah.

And guns. But guns usually go the other way. Trading them. Trading them for dope and stuff.

Guns going the other way.

Yeah. So like, say we're a gang. Say we're Texas Syndicate. Sindicato. Right. Or Mexican Mafia or whatever. Aryan Brotherhood. Let's say we're Aryan Brotherhood since we're white. I'll put us in our correct genre.

Ethnicity.

But say we're Aryan Brotherhood and we've got weapons, but we're good at getting weapons, but we get down there, we trade the weapons for dope. I wouldn't say that's all the time, but I mean, it happens.

I'm just curious, when you're talking about these ransom things, is that what you'd call it? Ransom?

Extortion, kidnapping.

Extortion, kidnapping. What's your success rate of recovery?

As far as I know, once we've gotten the case, we got them. Really? Yeah, I do not— I never heard of not very many times to get cooked in a barrel. I didn't. Well, but that wasn't one of the victims, that was one of the cartel guys. The victims got kidnapped because the money was missing, but once they figured out it was El Aguila, they let the kids go.

Oh, okay.

So yeah, I would say From my knowledge, and I never heard of anybody talking in the history of McAllen where they've lost some. I'm sure it's happened, but from my knowledge, no. Once we got the case and we made the phone calls, we'd get them back.

So what's the transfer look like?

You're at the bridge or you're at the port and it's like, you know, here comes it, here comes the car and the money, here comes one Or Pablo, I don't know, whoever the person is. So now, a lot of times— now here's the thing though, a lot of times if it was drugs and we've done all that, we've busted our tail to get that person back safely, we'd be ready to interview them. As soon as they come to us, they go, I'm not telling you nothing, because they've just been threatened that they're— that even though the cartel's cutting them loose, the cartel's telling them, we'll kill you, we'll kill your family, we'll kill your dogs, we'll cut your tongues out, all whatever. So they're not going to work with us. So some may argue that we just freed a drug dealer. Now, the human trafficking stuff, I saw that as a— I mean, me personally, my personal opinion, which the Constitution is the Constitution, but my personal opinion is, is, yeah, those are victims. I mean, they got paid. They paid money. Somebody paid money for them to come across the river, be smuggled across the river.

Then they get them to a staging location, which is the stash house. Then you got to get around the checkpoint, and from there, that's where you go off to Houston, Dallas, or wherever. But we've had cases where, uh, um, they're extorting the family who's already here. They're undocumented, but they're already here, and they're extorting the family saying, you know, we've already dumped your, uh, sister in the brush and let her— left her to die. Your 5-year-old daughter's sick, and we're not going to get her any medicine unless you start paying us more money. So now they're extorting that family. Now we're trying to find where the stash house is at trying to rescue that 5-year-old girl.

Damn, man.

Yeah, that was a good case. We were on that one. That was a, that was a hump. Uh, it was, I mean, it only lasted several days, but you're trying to find, you're trying to get any piece you can. Um, and, and we, we eventually got it. It was one of those, it was one of those deals where, um, we knew that, we knew that the phone that was being used by the extortion person was somewhere in a general facility. But that facility is like a— let's say it's a big gas station or something. Uh, and then it's like, hey, it looks like, looks like the thing's moving, kind of thing. And then at that same time, 4 different people walk out, and I'm like, oh, and I'm the lead agent, and I'm looking, I'm going, oh man, Lord help me. And I'm looking and I'm going, everybody's like, which one are we going with? Which one are we going with? And I'm just looking and I'm going, hope my gut's right. Let's follow that guy. And we surveil. And then once we put that guy down, we were able to confirm that the phone was close by and we're like, got the right one.

So then you go kick in the door. The undocumented aliens weren't there, but we knew we had the right guy because the phone that had been used to call was there. And they had ledgers. They had ledgers of— it was very— it was actually great for intelligence. They had ledgers of names of all the organizations. So if this load came in today, this notebook would say every person's name in the group, uh, this illegal undocumented. And then it would have the name of the walker, the coyote, and you have the name of the organization that brought them over. And then the next ledger was the coyote that picked them up and who's taking them. And then after about an hour and a half interrogation, he decided to take us to the stash house and we got the 5-year-old girl back. Wow, that's awesome. Put her on the phone with her mom. They were Honduran family. We put her on the phone with her mom. She still had her little schoolgirl outfit on. And yeah, there weren't a dry eye. All the guys, man, we were like, yeah, just put her on and go, hey, here's your mommy.

And she's talking. And then, man, we were all like You know, it sure is. It's windy out here. I got some sand. I'm not crying, you're crying.

Damn. You seen all this stuff going on at the border in Spain?

Yeah, just from what I've— I mean, a little bit just on TV. Crazy mass.

There's a Polly Market on this.

There's got to be. I mean, it's a coordinated effort for somebody, for that many people to pop in.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. What do you think? I mean, there's a Polymarket on this, whether Spain will accuse Morocco of facilitating the migrant surge into Cueta. From your border experience, how can you tell when migrant— when migration is organic versus deliberately encouraged by a government or a criminal network?

Oh, that's a good question. Uh, we're gonna have to dive in that baby and conduct a logical investigation, you know, because I mean, you're gonna have to start interviewing people, sources. It could be sources that tell you It may be the government leaking it. I don't know. Social media, the news coverage, it's just so— I would say that could, that could get it out there, maybe let you know. But there's so much fake stuff on there now.

Yeah.

And I'm sorry, there's so many people. If you got a camera and a microphone, you can get you a YouTube channel. That does not mean it's the truth.

Yeah.

For the love of all that's holy, man. I mean, there's like new stuff. It looks legit. It's like we blew up this many boats today and sank them. And I'm looking at Fox, I'm looking at CNN, I'm looking at— I'm like, I'm looking at all the main things. I'm going, this would be worldwide news. Or is it— am I getting to the conspiracy thing? Or are you looking at it? Say, ah, man, it's just so weird now. And I think it's just going to get worse.

What signs suggest migration is being used as political leverage?

Oh man, I'd rather do this over a beer when that camera's rolling. Oh, is it, man? You always try to— they try to pin you, you know. Well, are you conservative or are you liberal? Uh, well, did you see anything like that when you were down there? Look, man, the open border thing's political. That's under whatever regime, you know, it's because I work down there. I know that even during COVID even during COVID when they shut down, they shut down the checkpoints. Like I'm talking to my peers and mentors and people I've been blessed to mentor and they're like, no, there's nobody working the checkpoint. Nobody's working the checkpoint. They go, no. And I go, I wonder how long that took to get to the cartel. Yeah, because of COVID And then they start, okay, well, we'll work first shift. Or we're going to work 2 shifts, but we're not going to man third shift. That's like— it's literally like ants at a picnic. How long does it take them to figure out where the food's at? And there's a conga line going right there, right? It's the same thing. We drove one night, my partner who ended up becoming an FBI agent, he was a Border Patrol agent at the time.

We drove out to Hebronville because they apprehended a load from a group we were asking about. And we like, okay, it's a good opportunity. We pulled in and we're like, When we pulled in, we're like, we didn't go through a checkpoint to get here. I mean, we got— it's like 2 in the morning, but I'm like, we walk in, he's Border Patrol, he goes, hey, why come this one isn't manned? Oh, we're understaffed. It's literally like 5 minutes before the cartel knows. And if you say, if the road's 101, they go, everybody take 101, it's unmanned right now. So even if you're working 2 shifts at Falfurrias checkpoint, I guarantee you, you're sitting in the brush watching. All right. Yep. Lights are going off. Reverse lights on. Okay, they're leaving. Let's go. Yeah. I mean, we really had no idea what was coming in.

Damn.

But if you want to talk political, I mean, yeah, I think there's an argument to be made. If you— politicians and votes. I'm sure there's a country song out there about it. Pretty sure Charlie Daniels did it. And it might be something to do with a long-haired country boy.

So where do we go from here? Is this— is this where you go to FBI undercover training?

Sure, yeah, because we talked about the cartel and stuff. I mean, when I came up to Tennessee as a case agent, we did a lot of the opioid stuff. We shut down 4 pill mills here. But we can get into the meat now.

Let's do it.

Yeah, you want to go— I don't know what you want to go first. You want to go Outlaws? That's a big one. The white supremacy is a big one, but murder for hires, uh, public corruption—

go outlaws.

Okay, bam. Ready?

Let's do it.

Let's do it. Let me take a little— take a little sip of this high-quality H2O. Um, so somewhere around 2005 ish in the FBI. Well, let me, let me, let me start this way. I got certified as an undercover in 2002. I finally got certified as an undercover. I'd actually already done some undercovers because I got transferred out of New York City to San Antonio on what they call a specialty undercover because I was full-time undercover. And when they did the renewal, you know, at 6 months they're doing a renewal, they're planning out the next time. We need this budget, we need this, we need this. And then that they wrote. Scott's full-time, transfer him to the San Antonio division. So that goes back to me talking about the 9/11. So as soon as I could fly, I went. But I didn't lose my transfer. But even though I'd done those undercovers, I wasn't certified yet. I got specific case approval to be undercover on that case because of my background and being a narc and all that stuff. So I finally get a slot in the school and I go and, um, I won't give away everything about the school, but it's pretty well known.

It's 2 weeks, no days off, and we're big on sleep deprivation. Like, that first, that first 4 days, 5 days, if they're still running it the way we did from 2002 to 2022, um, it's a, it's a booty kicker, but As you know, with your training and stuff, some people, some people say that's the hardest certification in the FBI. I say HRT. I'll say the UC school is probably second, but HRT, Hostage Rescue Team, that's our Tier 1. I mean, we've got numerous former Navy SEALs that have come into the FBI and go to HRT, Green Berets, all kinds of spec ops. Or it could just be a former cop like me, SWAT, and you go there. That is a 2-week tryout. Sleep deprivation as well, but it's very, very physical. So really, I don't know of too many that have ever made the team on their first tryout. You're just trying to get through that 2-week tryout without getting injured. You want to complete the course, you know. But the UC school is, it's more on the mind game stuff, right? Um, I have seen people nut the fuck out. I would have never known it, even though my mother was psych.

I'd Some people, if you take their schedule and you twist it sideways and upside down and they don't get the same meals at the same time, they don't get to work out at the same time, they don't get to nap or use the bathroom at the same time for a couple of days in a row, some people just, well, fuck off, you know. And I never would have— I never would have known that I had not seen it. And, uh, but that's integrity. That, that's good for the school. It's not hazing. I have never seen 100% graduation rate. I never knew of one prior to me or after me or during the time I was there. And it's not a hazing thing. It's just that some people aren't cut out for undercover. Yeah, you might be the best case agent in the world. You might be the best firearms instructor in the world, best firearms shooter, maybe not cut out for undercover work. So I got certified and I mean, I'm in—

what, there's approximately 11,000 FBI agents, at least 600 Undercover, something like that.

What we used to say for years, the numbers fluctuate, but it would be like out of 11,000 agents, say 600 are certified undercovers. And then if you say out of those certified undercovers in the FBI, how many of you have been the primary undercover on one, just one? And it's going to dwindle down. More than one, less than 5. It's going to dwindle down. More than 5, less than 10. Now we're getting down. You get to the 10 and over. We probably all know each other because we're participating at the UC school. We're involved in the program. Everybody knows my big— I was big country. We got Gator, we got, we got all kinds, you know, but everybody starts knowing you and then you start recruiting and using. Now there's going to be new people coming in and old people leaving, but for the most part, you've got this crew. And really apropos, because we're getting ready to talk about 1% or bikers. They say that if you're an undercover in law enforcement, you're a 1%er because only 1% does undercover. And yeah, so I go to the school and I've got like Joe Pistone, like the Donnie Brasco.

No shit.

Yeah, that's my best man. I mean, he's still a friend. That's a mentor and a friend. Now I call him boss man. He's helped me a lot with all this kind of stuff since retiring. But, uh, yeah, and I was supposed to be with him in June. I was supposed to be with him, uh, we were gonna be teaching somewhere. But I got the Donnie Brasco. And let me tell you what I did when I went to the UC school. I was the last one to leave. I didn't care if I slept or not. I didn't care, man. I was so, so in it, man. So everybody that came and talked, I was just like, you know, it's so cool. I was trying not to be a fanboy. On the outside, but on the inside definitely was. But they'd kick me out of the— they'd kick me out of the drinking room. I'd be like putting up trash. They're like, kid, go, go to bed. I'm like, okay, but let me ask you about this, you know, if you're going to sit here and talk to me, I'm going to be a sponge. So I get certified and then on paper I'm a white guy with no foreign language.

I may not jump out at a whole lot, you know, grew up landscaping and played ball and was a cop. And a bouncer. But you start— I start trying to network, start trying to get my name known, and, and, or at least find work is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to find work. And I got to— they finally called me and said, hey, do you want to role play at the undercover school? And I was like, absolutely. So when I went to role play, so that's just for the scenarios at night, right? You're going to be an undercover and we're going to be doing live scenarios where you're the student coming in and trying to do good, learn. You know, you may die and you got to do another one. But I started role-playing and then that's when people started getting to know me. Because even if they hadn't seen— they haven't seen you work undercover, they can watch you in a scenario with interact with people. And maybe, maybe they're a senior undercover and they're not just there to be at the school to teach and and role play or be a counselor, they're actually there recruiting for their division because they know the case is coming up and they need somebody with your skill set.

So I do all that. And then I used to call the unit like once a week and I'd go, hey, you got anything for any rednecks from their foreign language? And next week we go, they'd be like, hey, Supervisor such and such. I go, hey, what's going on? It's Country. Country, what are you doing? You got anything for any rednecks from their foreign language? And that's when they finally invited me to school. Eventually, people start getting to know you. And it turns out that there was going to be— they had an investigation, a case going in Massachusetts on a couple of chapters of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club up there. That's a 1%er club. And I know you've already had 1%ers, former 1%ers on this show, but for the listeners, 1%er means that The term was coined after Vietnam. A lot of biker clubs started forming after like World War II and stuff like that. But after Vietnam, it should be pretty well known to everybody that when the soldiers came back, they weren't treated that well. They weren't welcomed back. A lot of them were getting into biker clubs and were doing some nefarious, rowdy type stuff to the point, I guess it was garnering so much attention that the president of the AMA, the American Motorcycle Association, I think is what it was called then.

Came out and did this media blitz and said, listen, 99% of all motorcycle riders are good law-abiding citizens. It's only 1% of them bad. And they took that as a badge of honor and they became One Percenters. So they had an investigation going on up there, uh, and I got— I can't remember if I got canvassed in an email or I saw the canvas or somebody called me, but it was probably more of a word-of-mouth thing. And, uh, I talked to them, and I don't know how many people they interviewed for possible undercovers for the case, but it's almost like an audition, you know. And I went up there and they picked me.

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Uh, I guess number one, that you can go in there and hold yourself upright with that kind of crowd. Um, I remember, I remember being peppered, man, in the beginning because it was like DEA, ATF, us, the FBI, state and local But as the case went on, I think it was just— there was a DEA agent that was on our team, and then we had like 3 on our team. That's the thing. In the beginning of a case, it's all passionate. Everybody's there. Everybody wants to be a part of it. If that thing's still going 30 days later, a lot of people start losing passion, trickling off. But if it's your case, you're the case agent, you're going to work it. So I got up there. They were— we were going over like game plans. So maybe they were looking for that. It's like, how would you do this? And I'm like, well, based on my experience, let's say you've got somebody. There are cases where you may have a source and that source can introduce me. Hey, this is my good friend Scott. Well, that's good, but it could be bad too. It could be bad if you look at like a Donnie Brasco situation.

Where Lefty is the one that brought him into the mafia. If it turns out that they think Donnie Joe Pistone is a snitch or a fed, they're probably not going to tell Lefty because Lefty's the one that brought him in. But what if he came in by himself? And that's kind of what I said. I said, look, I think I would rather go in cold. And by going in cold, I mean I don't have a source introducing me, nothing. I'm just going to be let me, let me build my story. And my story was that I was a site survey specialist, um, because I could transition to that from landscaping pretty easy. I could sell it, make it look real. I could actually go to the clerk of court, I could pull records, 4-point survey, whatever I'm doing, right? But it allows me to travel. And that was my legit reason for being in Massachusetts. But they gave me a lot of intelligence, um, like, uh, There was one member whose road name was Spanky, and they said that he just loved to be surrounded by big dudes and loved to be the center of attention.

And they were spot on on that, and I used that to my advantage. Um, but some other things were kind of hit and miss. Like, I asked him, I'm like, hey, we knew that they hung out at this bar called Foxy Lady. Foxy Lady strip club, not gonna say gentlemen's club, uh, But Foxy Lady, and I'm like, can they wear their cuts in there? Their leather vest, for the listeners that don't know, with their colors, whatever their patch is. And the answer was no, they can't. I'm like, oh man, this is going to be— that's going to not be hard at all for me. I'm just thinking in my head, I'm like, I'm going to be in a bar other than me sounding like a redneck. I'm like, I'm going to be in a bar having a drink. Listen to heavy metal music. I'm a tattooed dude. There's naked people running around next to a dude just like me. Same thing. But when they all came in, they were all wearing their colors. So luckily what I did is before I ever did it, before I ever was going to see them or bump them, I went to that bar a couple of times just to make it, just work it for hours, just go in there and be me.

Because human nature will exaggerate anyway. You know, the fish was this big, but the 10th time you tell the story, it was a whale. So by the time— by the time they're coming in, and I know because the case team, cover team's telling me, all right, they're leaving the clubhouse, looks like they're coming over, um, yeah, they're headed to Foxy Lady, I'm like, all right, now's my time. I've laid the groundwork, I've got my backstory, and here it is. So when they walk in and take that whole back bar and it's just a sea of black leather and testosterone, it changes my approach. Now, I mean, what am I going to do? Walk out and go, hey, you boys ride? You know, you know what I'm saying? Nothing. All right, I'm out. They start beating you up. But I had a group of people that I was already befriending or talking to at the bar, and I was telling jokes and they were laughing and I could see— I could see peripheral. I could see that, uh, it was eating Spanky up. Like a big laughter. How you see Spanky? He'd be like, what the hell's going on over there, man?

Who is that dude? Who is that dude? Well, what he's doing is he's asking the bartender, hey, who is that guy? Oh, that's Scott. He comes here all the time. He's from Texas. I don't go there all the time, but she knows me, right? So that's, that's that whole— your legend, your backstory, it has to be real. Has to look real, has to pass the sniff test, right? So eventually it aggravates him enough to where he yells over to me and he's like, hey, where the fuck are you from? And I'll make some stupid joke and he laughs and then we're giggling and whatever. I'm like, oh man, cool, man. I go back over, I'm playing hard to get, and he sends a drink or calls me over and eventually I go over and I talk to him. And it's braggadocious, a lot of that. And he gives me some business cards. He said, hey, man, we've got the Northeast Regional coming up, the Lobster Fest. Lobster, lobster festival. And he says, if you're going to be in town, come back, tell them you're my guy and all this stuff. Well, there's another guy I met that night named Scott Towne, and this dude was jacked.

And by jacked I mean very muscular, for listeners that don't know. Big dude, big muscular dude. So I remember going to the bathroom and the Foxy Lady, and again, for listeners that don't know, like, especially in a guy— if you're in a bar and you go to a guy's bathroom and you walk up to the urinal, there's usually like a box of plexiglass, then it's got like ads for this dancer's coming, or don't forget clamp strip Friday or something like that, you know, car wash Sunday or whatever they got. So I'm looking in that reflection of that glass and this— and the bathroom door swings open and I see Scott through the reflection and I'm watching. I'm already making notes in my gray, gray t-shirt with black rim, rimming on it. He's totally sleeved out tattoo, left arm, 3 big-ass earrings. You know, I'm going through this whole thing and I'm watching him. He looks at the stalls. He's looking under the stalls and he's pushing the stalls, making sure nobody's in there. And I'm like, oh, he starts walking towards me and I'm like, I think I'm getting ready to get jumped. I think it's for a split second because he's cleared, he's made sure there's nobody else in the bathroom.

And for that split second I thought, I better hurry and finish and zip this thing up because I don't want to be fighting. I don't want to be fighting with my privates outside my zipper, you know. What was it? Something About Mary.

Yeah.

We got a bleeder. I'd be like, oh my gosh. Yeah. How'd you get the bean on top of the Frank? Yeah. So he walks up and I thought, man, I'm going to get jumped. I can't even. And then he's like, so where'd you say you were from? And I'm like, oh, I'm from McAllen. He goes, oh, I'm familiar with that. He goes, I just used to fight dogs. Yeah, I was down in Brownsville, man. That's how long ago. Yeah. What else are we still talking? Oh yeah, I grew up in South Carolina.

What part?

Greenville. Oh man, I was in Spartanburg. Also, this one I'm saying, had I been bluffing, he could have caught me right there. You need to know, right? On a funny side note, I used to say I was a landscaper all the time. So here I am in McAllen. It's been a long time since I landscaped. Even when I flew with Scott Payne, I wouldn't tell anybody who I was, you know? So I'm next to a very nice elderly lady. Well-dressed. We're flying from McAllen to Houston. She says, what do you do? I said, well, I'm a landscaper. She starts questioning me so hard, so fast, peppering me. It was like— it was like I was getting knocked out. She blew my cover so bad that I literally turned to her and said, ma'am, I apologize. I lied to you. I'm actually an FBI agent. And I thought to myself, don't everybody— don't tell nobody you're a landscaper anymore. She spilled you. What about this tree? You know, in this kind of— this year it doesn't grow and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, maybe I'll just go with— I'll plant and I can keep up the maintenance.

Maybe that's what I'll do. So he questions me and we start to get to know each other. So by the time I come back for the Lobsterfest, I'm already getting to know Scott pretty good and I end up going with him. And I remember walking in again. You got to have an entrance. You go in. It was the Brockton Clubhouse, live music. All kinds of stuff. And then you're being scrutinized. I mean, every time you meet somebody new, whether the— whether this whole chapter knows you and can vouch for you, you go to the Daytona Run, you go to the Sturgis Run, you go to another clubhouse, and you're this close, you got a president going, who the fuck is this and how did he end up in Massachusetts? So whatever you say on day one, it could be 2 years from now. It better match. Damn. Yeah, so you're planting that seed and you need to know it. Um, so as the case went on, uh, I meet the president of the chapter, Joe Dogs, and, uh, they have an enforcer there named Clothesline. That's their street names, their road names. Um, but through the case, uh, it starts coming out that I'm a criminal too.

Um, shocker. Uh, and We started kind of light. They're already predicated, and that's a big thing. People are like, well, how can you do— look, if the dude's already— we've already worked the case, we know they're selling dope, we've documented they're selling dope. Well, I can go up to you and talk to you about dope. But if I've never met you before and all of a sudden we think we're going to make you a target and, hey, uh, uh, how about you may give you a kilo of cocaine for free? Well, maybe you're broke. Maybe that— let's— now we're getting into some entrapment stuff, right? But if you're predicated and you've already— we've already shown that you do this kind of stuff, then, then we're good, um, for the most part, uh, to get the case going, right, and start the investigation. So I started laying out this legend that I was a high-ranking member, or if not the leader, of an international theft ring. So I knew because I was on the border and I worked with Texas DPS, Border Patrol, even for my own insurance. I know that what I said earlier, a 4x4 V8 and Harley-Davidson stolen all the time.

All the time. So I knew that was popular. And I did a little— we did a little dog and pony show where I got Joe Dogs with me one night and we go out and he sees me meet a truck driver. He sees me pay cash to the truck driver. He sees me with what would appear to be a truckload of stolen equipment. And that's the way I portrayed it as such. I even give him some, you know, um, and then he's like, oh man, you make a pretty good lick on that. And I'm like, yeah, not too bad. He goes, all I saw was power tools. I said, exactly, just let him wonder, just let him wonder. Um, so then it becomes to where it's insurance fraud, and that's where we started really starting to do some stuff. They would report their motorcycle stolen, they get their insurance money I would buy the motorcycles at a stolen price from them, which is usually 20 to 25% of actual cost. And then that happens. Nobody goes to jail. Build us some trust. Then it's, hey, when you coming back, Tex? They nicknamed me Tex. Uh, when you coming back, Tex?

I'm like, I don't know, man, couple of weeks. I can be up there. Why? What you got? I got some things lined up. Okay, what you got? Let me know. And then we got to where I'd come into town and they would have like F-350s. 2,500 diesels, and we're loading them on the semis. And then it keeps going, and I'm gaining more and more trust with that kind of stuff. But now also on the side, there's a lot of grenade and, and rocket launcher, whatever, talk, and, and fully automatic weapon talk. Some things come to fruition, some things don't. But the biker war's still going on during this stuff. I know you just had a former Hells Angel on That was, that's, that was the arch rivals of the Outlaws and vice versa. Boston and north was Hells Angels territory. Boston south was Outlaw territory till about Cape Cod. What the Outlaws were trying to do is they wanted to set up a new chapter in Cape Cod, but they needed to stack it with big, what they were saying, big jack dudes that could protect themselves and fight for the club. And they were trying to recruit me and Scott for because Scott was a big dude, and I guess they thought I was big at that time.

And they were going to try to recruit us to become Outlaws, and we'd be a part of that Cape Cod chapter to fight the Hells Angels. So, um, and there's all kinds of intergang stuff that goes on. Like, uh, Scott even had one— you go beat the colors off of a Hells Angel, so when you go do your criminal activity, you wear the Hells Angels cut to make it look like the Hells Angels are doing it, not the Outlaws. Or if you go retaliate against another club and you're wearing that Hells Angel cut, stuff like that happens.

Gotcha.

Um, so let me see where I'm at in the story. All right, so now I'm getting more and more trust. Um, but during this, we've got— during the 2 years, a 2-year case, but during the 2 years we had a Hells Angel president murdered. I don't know if they ever proved it was Outlaws. If we would have taken the case RICO, we could have wrapped up a lot more people. But that's up to the US Attorney's Office, not me. But we did know that it was Bridgeport, Connecticut. And we do know that the shooters were in a green truck with Florida plates. We also knew that Hells— I mean, the Outlaws from Florida were up in the area because they were staying with my crew. And when that happened, now the case team is doing wiretaps. I'm over there, I'm calling, I'm dirtying it up. I'm talking to them like, hey, what's going on? They're like, man, it's hot here right now. If you come, you need to be packing and have a vest. I go, I don't want to travel that shit. If I get there, will you throw me something? Yeah, cool. And you're getting that intel.

We've got the— it might have been retaliation for that, but Sturgis, they called it, hey, all Outlaws are going to Sturgis, get your shit and go. And we all went out to Sturgis. The day I got there, two Outlaws— I'm sorry, two Hells Angels, uh, I think from Canada, shot five Outlaws at point-blank range at a gas station. I think it was a gas station, but it was like two, two old ladies, a prospect, I think, and two patch members. And there were some serious wounds, like paralyzed, paralyzed from the waist down. You know, that's one of those where the case team's like, going out there. I'm like, I'm not going out there wearing no outlaw stuff. They're shooting me. You know, I got enough holes. So all that's going on during this case. Well, I'm building trust. And now it gets to where, hey, Tex, we carjack somebody. Now they're coming to me after taking a vehicle at gunpoint from somebody. That's a, that's a serious charge. And they're telling me, we need to get rid of this thing, it is hot. I said, I got it. Now they're trusting my truck drivers. Truck driver pulls up, we put it on there.

I said, don't worry about whether it was OnStar or LoJack, whatever it was back then. Um, I say, my guys will take care of it. And that's what started happening more and more. And, and we were filling the warehouse up with stolen vehicles and property and all kinds of stuff. We're getting intelligence that they've been doing home invasions, um, uh, almost killed a guy, uh, things like that. Extortion, definitely running dope. But if you look at the Taunton chapter, that's the main one I infiltrated. Taunton and Brockton are right next to each other, but the Taunton chapter, really, out of like 13 to 15 guys, I think like 1.5 had a job. I mean, as far as I know, one had a towing company. The other one was a tattoo artist and piercer. And I think he worked all the time. Pretty much everybody else, at least the ones I dealt with, they were straight thugs. No job, just by, by criminal means making your money.

Damn.

Whether that's break-ins. I mean, one of them said, you don't ever show up without your dues money. You got to pay your dues. I don't care if he's like, I don't care if on my way here I don't have my money. And I see an old lady walking down the street, I'll go over there and knock her out and take her purse, you know, so I can pay my dues. And I'm like, all right, keep talking. So all that's going on, I'm gaining more trust. But one of the main things that's happening is me and Scott Towne are bonding. We are bonding like it is insane. I mean, out of any case I've ever done, and 28 years of law enforcement, never bonded this tight with somebody. I mean, we finished each other's sentences. We love pretty much the same stuff. I mean, fighting, drinking, lifting, tattoos, motorcycles, having a good time, you know. Uh, literally, it's that story of the proverbial fork in the road. Like, I think at that proverbial fork in the road, he went that way and I went that way. I easily could have gone that way. That could easily be me.

Um, and I was raised good.

He liked it.

Yeah, but I mean, that's— I'm like, that could easily be me. I could have made one wrong choice and went that way. Maybe that's why I was good at at least the groups that I infiltrated, you know. That's my skill set, you know, me. But It gets to a point to where if the case team was worried about my safety, they'd be like, hey, you can't put it in the operations plan, you know. You can't put in an FBI operations plan, Scott Towns is going to be there tonight. You can't do that because he's a target. But they would ask, is Big Scotty going out with you tonight? Oh yeah, he's going to be there. And everybody be like, cool, cool, because see, they knew how much he loved me and I loved him, you know. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to the dark side. I'm not leaving the FBI and becoming a turncoat or whatever, but I am human. And you're looking at this dude and you're like, man, uh, he told me, he goes, man, he was patching, he was patching in and he was also working with the mafia and somebody got snagged on something and he said he was looking at time and he said he backed away from it because he's got 4 daughters at that time and he didn't want anybody He didn't want, he didn't want to go to prison.

Um, and you hear that, and I'm befriending this dude, but I know if I'm in a clubhouse or I need backup, there could be 3 SWAT teams outside that door. I can show you all kinds of videos where bad guy walks in and 8 shots are shot before that doorknob even turns, you know. So if you think you're— if you— if the only reason you're doing undercover is because you're like, well, I know I got 3 SWAT teams outside, I'd say that's the wrong reason, because if the crap hits the fan, it's really on you, you know? And a lot of times they might just be avenging your death, you know? But if Scott was there, I felt comfortable too, because I trusted him that much. I knew he'd have my back. He didn't know who Scott Payne was, but he loved Scott Callaway. And Scott Callaway was not too far from who I am in real life. So, but we are bonding. And there's one point in the case. And I'm like, I'm rocking his daughter. And at that time, his youngest daughter was 1 and my youngest daughter was 1. So if you've been around kids, that developmental stage, they kind of move the same, make the same noises.

So it's easy for me to picture my daughter while I'm rocking his daughter. And I'm like, man, it's going through my head. I'm like, dude, I really like this guy. I mean, it sucks because A lot of people, you ask them what undercover is, and some people will be like, well, you're pretending to be something you're not. You're lying. You're acting. The true definition of undercover work is you're creating relationships that you're going to betray. And it sucks if you look at it that way. You have to figure out how you're going to do that and rationalize it in your mind so it doesn't have an adverse impact on your psyche. Yeah. So whatever, whatever you got to do. You know, I don't know. To each their own. But as I'm rocking his daughter, I'm like, man, he likes this. I like that. He likes this. I like that. He likes this. I like that. His daughter looks like my daughter. And I'm looking and I'm staring. And again, I felt like I'm having doubts, like I'm going to turn dark. I'm going to be a 1%. But I'm looking at his refrigerator. His refrigerator had all kind of magnets and stickers and stuff on it.

And my eyes focused in. And I already said I'm a believer, I'm a Christ follower. But you see the bands a lot of times in the Christian community, WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? And I look on the refrigerator and I see WWSD, and I focus and I'm like, what would Satan do? And I was like, we ain't alike, you going to jail. I'm back, I'm back. But, uh, Yeah, I think he was just— I think he was doing it to bust chops though. But I was like, Satan, well, I don't think so, buddy. Them days are over. I left that back in Greenville, South Carolina, when I walked to church on Sunday morning, sweating, reeking of beer. But as the case went on, we were really, really tight. And so the case is growing. It's a year and a half now, year and a half in. And I would say at this point my closest relationship is Scott Town. My second closest relationship is Clothesline, the enforcer. My third is Joe Dogs, the president, and then trickles on down. I've now been all over the place. We've gone— I can't remember if Miami was— I mean, if Daytona was before that or not, but I know Sturgis.

We've done all kinds of stuff. So was time to up the ante. Told you they're already predicated for dope. The first time I talked to Joe Dogs and he said, where are you from? I said, McAllen. He goes, where's that? I get Texas on the, on the border. It's like the border. And next question, how much can you get a kilo of cocaine for? I was like, it goes for about $13 right now down there. He goes, man, if I can get them for $13. I go, no, no, no, you don't get them for $13 up here. It costs more up here because they have to be brought from the border up here. You want to come down there, you might be able to get them for $13. But so now I start laying out this because we've done all this stuff. They've seen my operations. They've seen, you know, they've invited me in to do stuff. They're, they're asking me to become an outlaw. I'm in their clubhouse all the time. And I said, like I said, going on trips with them. And now we're upping the ante. Now I lay out this elaborate story that takes time, but Essentially what they end up learning is that I did used to be in the dope game, and I got out because they popped people in my group and the heat was getting too close.

I've already explained everything about me moving stuff south. They think I'm taking all this stolen equipment south. Well, I've only— I've only stated what's true. Like, if a grenade goes for this much here, it goes for this much in Mexico. I'm working with all this. Cars. If the truck— if a semi-truck is headed south, a lot of times if law enforcement is looking for money going south, money or guns like we talked about earlier. But if it was a truck full of stolen vehicles, I played it off to the outlaws like, so what's the big deal? Maybe you seize the truck, maybe you seize the vehicles, but if it's a valid bill of lading, well, how's the truck driver supposed to know? He's just picking up cars. He looks at the back, you gonna take him to jail? Played it like that. But I did let them know that I used to be in the dope game, and they know I got truck drivers, they know I deal with the cartel, or they believe this anyway. And I explained to them, in case anybody was wondering, how come the gringo has not been booted out of this Mexican— really, mainly Mexican operation.

And my story was, is that I was the guy who had the dirty contacts at the checkpoints and at the port of entry. Because there is corruption.

Gotcha.

Yes, because the FBI works public corruption, and down there you would get, you would get the Border Patrol agent who gets $15 grand to just do this. $10 to $15 grand to go next. I mean, if you're hurting for money, yeah, and you're vulnerable, and you are—

but a lot down there.

I don't say a lot because I want to say— I want to make it sound like everybody's dirty, you know, but But yeah, corruption is an issue. Yeah. And even a small department, like, what if you're a 2 or 3-man department and you make, I don't know, $40,000 a year? Maybe some of your family members, if you grew up there, some of your family members might be working with the cartel. It's just, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a different— it's different. It's different. And when you're working with the cartel, they value life. They don't value life like we value life. You know, so I tell them I'm not getting cut out because I'm the one that does that. That's all based on facts so I can sell it and make it look real. So now I'm laying out that I was in the dope game and I'm letting it— because I've— again, Joe Dawgs and several of them from day one, year and a half straight, man, if I could meet a pipeline, if I could— man, if you could hook me up with somebody down, just put me on the phone with them, whatever, maybe I'll come down and meet somebody.

Money. Because as a drug dealer, what do you want? You want the purest dope you can get for the cheapest price you can get it at. That way you can step on it, mix it up, double your money, maybe triple your money. Um, so as I'm laying this out, the breadcrumbs so to speak, Joe jumps, starts picking up on it. Next thing you know, we've got a full-blown plan to where he's going to get a chance to meet my cartel guy because we've got a dope load coming up my truck drivers are driving it. We're going to take a dope load, uh, and we're going to meet a cartel coming from Canada. I laid out the story that I wasn't letting them drive into Canada because they lost their— they lost their inside person at the port of entry, and I wasn't going to risk my guys going to jail. But if you want to come into the U.S.— and that's kind of the way it played out. Um, technique's been used a good bit. Matter of fact, as I'm laying all this out, the name I mentioned earlier, Jack Garcia, He had been doing— I didn't know it— he'd been doing a public corruption case, and somehow Boston was involved even though he was down in the Fort Lauderdale area.

But it was all over the news. Drug protection, drug protection, FBI staying, drug protection. And I'm like, oh shit, that's what I'm trying to do, you know? And I'm like, so every time I tried to word it, Sean, I would, I would try to not use the words drug and protection. I'd be like security. Making sure it doesn't get ripped kind of thing. Um, but we upped the ante, and, and they believed that they were going to get a chance to meet my cartel member, and we laid it all out. So other undercover came in and, uh, to help me, um, much as I've helped other undercover on their cases and stuff. And, uh, they didn't know it, but we had £1,000 of real weed and 40 kilos of real cocaine. Now that means the SWAT team is going to be set up. There's going to be snipers in place watching this whole deal go down. Because can you imagine if 40 kilos walked out in the street? That was our responsibility. And one person got hurt off of one gram. That's our fault. Yeah, right. So at this point, Scott and I are like connected at the hip, and it's the night before the operation.

And again, a year and a half in, and we've been laying all this out, and the FBI— I'm sorry, the United States Attorney's Office was asking me, the Assistant United States Attorney, uh, Peter Levitt, he said, hey, Scott, are they talking about this stuff in the clubhouse? And I said, yeah. I mean, he says, make sure if you can, make sure we can get that on recording, because I mean, if they're in the clubhouse talking about this drug protection and what roles are going to be, that just helps with like asset forfeiture and search warrants and stuff like that. Um, so of course I said yeah. I'm like, yeah, that's what we do. I'm going in to get the evidence. So Joe Dogs had told me come over, but it was the night they have church. And for those that don't know, uh, a lot of your 1%, a lot of your clubs period, have a mandatory meeting once a week. They refer to it as church. Some clubs, that's where they hide their phones, cut everything on, uh, airplane mode, go in, talk dirty business. Some, it's I'm just shooting the bull. But he calls me over and it's the night they're having church.

So I get to the clubhouse and I'm knocking on the door, I'm knocking on the door, I'm knocking, he's not coming. I'm like, man, what the hell? He opens the door like, hey, what is it? We're not ready yet. So I'm kind of being a smartass. I'm like, well then why'd you tell me to come over here? You know? So he says, hey, take this probate— somebody that's on probation trying to become a full patch member. He says, uh, y'all go get something to eat and come back. So I'm like, all right, so go get something to eat, a drink or two, come back, and we go in the clubhouse. Well, when we go in the clubhouse, um, for those that don't know, at least in this clubhouse, if you're not a patch member, you can't touch the door, you can't answer the phone. They respect me, they let me in there all the time, they give me drinks for free, um, but that's the rules. And the door is a steel frame. It's got, of course, it's got deadbolts and locks on it. But they had taken— they had welded two metal hooks onto the frame and laid like a metal bar across it, kind of like a shipyard bar, you know.

So from a breacher standpoint, it'd be a little bit of a tougher breach, right? Maybe it's better to breach around the door than through the door, depending on what kind of tools and stuff you have. So I'm in there and I'm cracking jokes. What you can't see is I've got, I've got an audio and video recording device. I've got an audio recording device. I've got a trans— I got all kinds of things on me. And but somewhere in my clothing is one of the devices. And what you can't see is like I'm at the bar and I'm— my, my body's facing this way. But I'm like, looking right here, so I can't see what my camera's seeing. But after everything was over and I got to go back and watch all this stuff, what you see is me telling the joke. And like, if I look down at Spanky and I'm like, hey, man, you know, because I'm a jokester, it's like, yeah, there's like, we're laughing, laughing. When I would turn, stone face. I just didn't see it because I was looking. But you see, you see him like, you see him like, that's funny too, that's funny.

I didn't see it. I didn't pick up on it.

Damn.

Um, you got, you got a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd playing over the loudspeaker, and in the back you got Chocolate Scott doing this. And at first you're like, oh, he's dancing. No, he's not dancing. He's warming up. He's doing it to the beat of the song, but he's warming up. And then, uh About that time, Clothesline, my second closest friend at the time, in the case anyway, um, connection I should probably say, uh, he says, hey Tex, can I talk to you for a minute? I've been in that clubhouse so many times, there's one door I never went in. I didn't know what was behind that door. And he says, can I talk to you for a minute? And I'm like, yeah. And as he's turning, he turns and opens the door, I'm right behind him Chocolate Scott comes in right behind me, and I go, oh, that's not normal. And it's a tight stairwell. You go down to— I, I think the book says it's a basement. That's being really, really generous. More like a crawl space. I mean, I couldn't stand up straight, probably touch the wall on both sides, but, you know, like a bench and stuff down there.

And I think there was even a bedroom under there, like the basement area, but So I get down there and I'm freaking out right now because I'm like, this is not good, this is not good at all. And one of the other outlaws comes down and I see him, I see him doing this, like there was something. I saw a rope. I didn't see plastic on the floor, um, which I was looking for. And for listeners that may not know, in this type of world and environment, if you walk in kind of mafia style and you see plastic all over the floor, that's probably not a good sign for you, because the whole idea is they kill you and these grab the four corners and pick it up. No, no blood to clean up. Um, so I saw a rope, I didn't see plastic, and I hear him say, hey, let's go back upstairs for a minute, he's got to do something. I don't know what it was that was down there that that other member was trying to hide or get rid of. I don't know if it was dope, weapons, what, I'm not sure.

But then they bring me back down, so I'm upstairs And some people are like, why don't you try to leave? I go, I don't know. I mean, could I have gotten out the door? Yeah, I don't know. 12 outlaws or so after their church meeting. So I'm looking at Joe Dogs and I'm burning holes through him because Joe Dogs is the president and he controls that whole clubhouse. And when he finally looks at me, I say something like, what's up? And he says something like, I don't worry about it. And then looks away. So then they come and they take me back down. Now they go down, they've already brandished their weapons. They brandished their weapons when they took me down the first time. They both got pistols. Um, pretty much, you're not free to leave, right? Yeah, yeah, another, another, another reason not to rush for the door. So I go down and that's when Clothesline says, look, there's a lot of shit going on, it's my job to take care of my brothers, because he's the enforcer. He says, I need you to write down your full name, your full name, your date of birth, your social, your address, wife's name.

He said, I'm not going to ask for your kids' names. Not like I can't find it, but I'm not going to ask for it. And he says, and then I need you to take all your clothes off. Got to check you for a wire.

Shit.

Year and a half. And I was like, son of a— because of the stress level, the oh shit moment, the oh crap moment, adrenaline dump, whatever you want to call it. Um, for those that don't know, you've— I think most adults have experienced it, even if it's in a car wreck. Everything slows down and goes in slow motion. You get auditory exclusion. Everything you hear sounds like you're underwater. It's going whoosh, whoosh, but it's slow. Scott, take off. And then you get time dilation in your eyes. Everything's clicking in screen grabs. It's not smooth. You can feel your heart beating through your whole body. My hamstrings get rubbery. You know, you have other parts of your body you feel like are right here, your throat, other parts of your body that are squeezing and clenching. Yeah. I'm like, did you hear that? Did you hear that sound? That was me sucking the air out of the room. I said, because I was like, oh no. But because of that and the stress, I forgot my middle name. So tactically, we always talk about bleed on the range so you don't die in the street. We're working reps, working reps, working reps so it becomes instinctive.

Some people say muscle memory. I like to say you train till it becomes instinctive. I can show you video after video. I'm sure you can show me military, uh, gun toters, cops in shootouts. They have no idea how many rounds they shot. They have no idea that they did an effective magazine exchange. They have no idea they did behind cover, but they did it. Cause they've been training it. So in the undercover world, you got to do a lot of that in your head. What ifs? Or go role play at the school or try to get some reps in somehow. So I'm looking down at that thing and I'm going, Scott Callaway, Scott Callaway, Scott Callaway. And I'm just going through this Rolodex in my brain. It feels like it's forever, but it's not. I'm having that adrenaline dump and I'm going, Scott Callaway, Scott Joseph Callaway. I'm like, no, that was the middle name of the first alias in '96. I'm going through it. While I'm doing that, I turn. I have no idea. I would have never believed it if I had not seen the recording. I turn and I go, and what else do you need?

Although it's not that clear because I'm having a crap moment and I think I'm getting ready to get caught. It's more like, what else do you need? With a higher pitched voice, my throat's tighter. Yeah, it's like, should I ask what's going on? And then I hear him yell up to the probate, what do you need for that website? And I go, oh, okay, now they're going to search me. They're going to Google me. There's some websites back then like whosarat.com. Maybe they can cross-reference, make sure I'm not a fed or a snitch. And then I remember my initials, and I was like, oh, okay. And I write down my name. Well, now I turn around and I take off all my— I take my boots off, I take all my upper body clothing off, and I drop my jeans and underwear around my ankles. So from my ankles up, birthday suit. Completely naked. And they checked me for a wire, um, didn't really check too hard, uh, around my feet, um, but check me. And I'm like, again, that adrenaline dump, I'm still down here. Now I'm coming out of that adrenaline dump, I'm feeling better because he's like, okay, he's not fine, he's all right, he's cool.

Okay, hey, can you hug me? You know, I'm now cracking a joke, can you hug me? But it's a defense mechanism too. You know, I'm scared. I'm scared shitless. And fuck yeah. And he says, he says, yeah. And I think I'm good. I'm pulling my pants back up. I don't think I got my boots on yet. But then he grabs a piece of clothing and that piece of clothing had the recording device in it. And I thought I was done because my voice is coming back. You can hear me like starting to talk normal. Breathing's a little better. And then he says, hey, I'm not going to find anything in here I don't want to, right? Like some pictures of my old lady. And he laughs and he goes, my laugh is like, I hope not. I'm standing there on the wall, can't stand up straight, and I'm watching him take this piece of clothing and he's going down it with his hands. And I'm like, he's gonna feel it even though I got a thicker leather, even though I got this, I did that, I did this, tried to put stuff somewhere. He's gonna feel And as he's getting close again, I don't know how to do it.

You can hear in the recording, though, I go, "Ahhh!" Because I don't even know I'm doing it, but I'm just watching my life. I'm like, here we go. I don't know what I'm going to do, you know? I mean, I can't even stand up straight. If I try to fight, I'm probably going to do a Tommy Boy, crack my head on a joist and knock myself out anyway. But he looks right at it and misses it.

Are you serious?

Yeah, right at it, misses it. And then we're done. And I'm like, oh, thank you, sweet baby Jesus. And then I just start talking business. Now, that night, I was running on adrenaline. Yeah, I'll bet you were. And I was pissed. I shouldn't be pissed because I'm really not Scott Callaway. I'm really Scott Payne, an undercover FBI agent. But I took that shit personal. I'm like, you'd be my boy for a year and a half, but you got enough balls to take me down to a basement, strip me at gunpoint. Fair enough. I am an undercover. But, you know, I am. So I went out and a lot of people ask me since I've been— I've been teaching this since like 2008, this whole outlaw thing. And I get asked a lot, they're like, man, what would you have said if he would have felt something? And I said, well, I only had two answers, and I remember it like it was yesterday. My first one probably wouldn't have been a joke because he gave me that line. He's like, hey, not some pictures of my old lady, right? If he would have said, what is this?

I'd have been like, I don't know, some pictures of the old lady, just to try to buy some time, get him off, you know. Um, but the only other answer I have is this: the gig is up. I'm an undercover FBI agent. I can walk out of here and we can see each other in court, or all hell's getting ready to break loose. Problem is this: to my knowledge, every time I'd been in that clubhouse, my team couldn't hear me. Whether it's walls, equipment, distance, who knew? But I would have been a bluff on my part. Um, but that night when I went to hand in my stuff at the end of the night, when the shift's over, we made it a predetermined location. I hand them all the recording equipment. Maybe they give me more money for the next day. We do a quick debrief about what went down. Um, that night when I rolled up, I found out that they had heard everything. The two task force officers that were on the main case team, uh, one's a sergeant, uh, he's retired now, but Sergeant Higginbottom out of Massachusetts State Troopers. Everybody called him Higgy.

And then you got Detective Joe Cummins from Brockton PD. They started the shift on me. Whatever that first interaction between me and Joe Dogs was, it made them think something wasn't right. And what they— the way they told me is they had pulled close enough and they heard everything, and they heard me in the basement, and they went ahead and vested up, strapped up. They called back to the office, Boston, and said, you know, whoever was available, man, they got him in the basement and they're stripping him and he's wired to the hilt. And, uh, ish. So they tell me that they were all— everybody was coming, blue lights and siren. And, and the plan was that the task force officers came up with— excuse me— was they had been in that clubhouse on law enforcement activity before, so they kind of knew the door. Um, they were going to drive the van into the cinder block wall right next to the door if they felt like it was time to pull the trigger. But even though my voice was clearly different, though they had heard it, they could tell I was scared, but I didn't break and they didn't pull the trigger.

And we lived to fight another day.

But you guys didn't have a code word or anything?

Yeah, you can, but if they can't hear me— I mean, mine is, you know, I mean, I keep it simple, man. It's like, you know, I'd go on so many things and they're like, hey, uh, you got a code word? I go, yeah, if I yell help multiple times in a row, that's my code word. How about your physical code? You ever seen Platoon? If I look like Willem Dafoe running across the field, That's my physical sign. But they were listening. And there's so many things that goes into that kind of training, too. You can say, all right, to give us the signal, pick your hat up, scratch your head. Never done it in your entire life. As soon as you start talking to the bad guy, you pick it up, scratch your head, everybody comes. But another thing, the case agent was a buddy of mine. We were in through the academy together as new agents. And he told me, he said, he said, Scott, he said, man, when I was coming down that highway with blue lights on, he said, man, I felt like I was in there with you. I said, you weren't.

I said, man, I was looking for a friendly face anywhere down there. And then there's a comic. Well, I'll finish the comical part after I tell this. This is kind of a sad part, but— or touchy. At that point in my life, my daughters were 3 and 1. I'd bought my wife what's commonly referred to now as a burner phone. Doesn't come back to anything. That way I could call her from my undercover phone. And no matter what time it was, I would call her if I was on my way back to the hotel room. 4 in the morning, 7 in the morning, didn't matter. Usually it was real quick. Just want you to know I'm okay. I'm headed back to the hotel room. I'll call you when I wake up this afternoon. Okay. Sometimes we'd chat a little bit. That night when I called her, the first thing she said was, are you okay? The night of the basement. And I said, yeah, why? And she said, I don't know, but in McAllen, driving around tonight at such and such time, she goes, I just got this.

She was—

had the girls, she was running errands or something. She said, I got this overwhelming feeling of fear for me. And she pulled over on the side of the road and started praying for me. So I mashed it up, and it was when I was in the basement.

Holy shit, man.

Pretty wild. Pretty wild. I can't believe I got there. Usually I cry when I tell that story. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Um, but yeah, your daughters were 3 and 1. Yeah.

Were you thinking about them down there in the basement?

I was probably more in survival mode. I don't think I was. I don't think I— it was one of those things where I see my family flash before my eyes. I'm more like trying not to vapor lock. Keep talking, keep listening, try to get some intelligence, keep, keep moving, try to get out of this thing.

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No, no, but I was scared shitless. And that's what people say, well, what would have happened if they found it? I don't know, probably an ass whipping at a minimum. I don't know if they shot me or not, who knows. Mafia would have killed me, you know, they would have chopped me into pieces. But so I'll tell you this though, I start building that block of instruction because it was my mentors that would call me after all this stuff happened. They're like, hey, country, as soon as you can take care of yourself, put pen to paper about what you've learned through this whole thing because that's how we pay it forward. And I've always been an instructor kind of anyway, so I did and I loved it. The entire time. I didn't— I mean, I watched that video over and over and over and over and over, and I'd get butterflies and all this stuff. And then finally, after time passes, you can watch it with no problem. But it hit me what song was playing the entire time I was in that clubhouse. It was Give Me Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The whole premise of the song is a dude that's in a bad spot and he's trying to get out.

Give me 3 steps. Give me 3 steps, mister. Give me 3 steps towards the door. Give me 3 steps. Give me 3 steps, mister. You never see me no more. There's even a part in the song. He's like, he was lean, mean, big and bad, Lord. You know, he was staring down the barrel. I mean, all this stuff. And I started thinking, I was like, it's kind of synchronicity. Yeah. I was like, I was like, man, was Van Zandt trying to send me a message from the grave? You know? And then with my stupid sense of humor, I'm like, I said, I was probably over there praying, going, Lord, if I'm not supposed to go in this clubhouse tonight, if you'll just send me a sign, won't you give me 3 days? Hey, can you turn that down? I'm trying to talk to Jesus right now. I said, Lord, I apologize. These people can't. Yeah. So, so we live to fight another day, man. The next day I got up. I didn't sleep. If I slept, it was probably like 30 minutes. Got up and went to do the deal. They showed up and we did it, and I paid everybody, and it went off nice and smooth, and we accounted for all our dope.

And, uh, and then we were still off to the races. Shit. On the outlaw stuff. So then, as we're culminating towards the end of the case, by this time I had befriended several people in the Florida area and stuff like that as well. One in particular named Hillbilly. And as far as I know, Hillbilly was like the first Hammerskin skinhead ever become an outlaw. Um, and Hillbilly, we hit it off. I don't know, I still don't know the connection between Taunton and that Massachusetts area and the Florida, but they— I don't know if somebody would went down there and stayed. I don't know what the pipeline was, but I'd met him up in Massachusetts. So we're going down to Daytona to do the, uh, World Run, and By the time we get there, this is how this story ends. I was a zombie. I remember my MO, like, hey, don't let the bosses— don't give them a reason to say no. Work harder. Try to outwork everybody. Well, it was starting to be at my own detriment. I would go on an undercover through the weekend, but I would come back and I wouldn't take any days off because I didn't want management getting mad at me for being gone on the undercover.

And then this vicious cycle started snowballing. And it got to the point that at the end of a 3-year period, I was a walking zombie. I was on antihistamines, decongestants, inhalers. I was taking Ephedrine, drinking a bunch of coffee. I mean, I'd drink a pot of coffee and fall asleep. And that's, that's not me. I was exhausted. And we have something in the FBI called Safeguard. PAU. It's a psychological assessment unit. It's under the umbrella of the undercover program, but it gets used for other things too. Like if you work Innocent Images, you get— it's Safeguard that does your assessment. But if you're an active undercover in the FBI, you have to get assessed and they kind of assess you into a case, through the case, and out of the case. There'll be a post, like, okay, how did that end kind of thing. And generally the way it goes is you go in and take a bunch of tests. A lot of them are tests most businesses give their people anyway, but it's psychological questions and stuff. And then you go in and sit down with a psychologist, certified or licensed, and then they may be an FBI agent, they may be contracted in.

And then you sit down with somebody like a seasoned undercover, maybe like a Joe Pistone, who helped create the Safeguard Unit anyway. It was him and another guy that created that whole thing. But then you sit down with them kind of like that. You can't bullshit a bullshitter thing, so you can't UC a UC. We use undercover UC as a verb. And then they'll follow up with questions like, how's this? How's your office supporting you? What's your wife thinking? You know, things like that. So one of the tests is open-ended sentences. So they might say, women are, and you got to finish it. Men are, you got to finish it. My badge and gun are. My mom is. My dad is. Um, one of them was the last time I relaxed, I— and I went and did an assessment right before I went to Daytona. And I'm in there, and like I said, by this time I'm a zombie and just self-medicating, I guess. Uh, and I got to that one where it says the last time I relaxed, I— and I'm typing, and I look And my mind went blank. I literally couldn't think of anything.

I know it sounds dumb. It sounds dumb me saying it right now, but I could not think of one thing I did to relax. And I was like, well, I work out. And I go, yeah, but it's not like I'm doing namaste and listening to Yanni and trickling water. I'm throwing iron, you know. I'm like, that's good for you. It's good for your endorphins, but I don't know if that's relaxing. And I remember thinking, man, that is messed up. That you can't think of any way to relax. And then I made up a story. I didn't know I was already done. So I get to Daytona, uh, I go out with the Outlaws, I'm partying. Um, by this time Hillbilly sees me, calls me and backs me up to the front of the clubhouse, walks me in. I'm not a patch member. Walks me in, gets whatever drinks I want, goes, carries me out to the back with the tented area. Which to my understanding at that clubhouse only patch members should be there. But he brought me out back. We didn't know it, but he had become the Southeast Regional President. He eventually became the National President.

But, um, and they were— we were standing out back and it was, it was very crappy code, but mentioned something about because one outlaw wanted to kill a Hells Angel and he was upset and he wanted to retaliate right now. And it was like, hey, don't do it right now. They're expecting it. You see how long I had to wait to do that thing up north? Something like that. And I'm like, oh, is he talking about the murder? You know, so I go back that night and I debrief everything to the case teams from Jacksonville, Florida, FBI, and, uh, Boston. And the way it was worded to me was, man, they've had people in and around Hillbilly. He doesn't talk like that to any of them. Boston, where's your case at? We pretty much got everything we want. Let's talk to the US Attorney's Office and headquarters. But what if we don't take Boston down yet? Scott, you come down to Florida and try to patch under Hillbilly. And of course I said yes. I was like, absolutely. But I didn't know I was already done because I got up the next morning and if you've ever done it, especially in the younger years, you wake up, you can hear and feel the whiskey swishing in your belly with the eggs still there from Waffle House.

Last night before. And I got up and I said, man, I feel like a fat piece of trash. I started doing a workout in the room, something P90X-ish. It's like, you know, push-ups, mountain climbers, squats, burpees, which I suck at because I got a lumbar fusion. I don't really bend that well. But, uh, I was doing all that and I came up for air and it wasn't there. And because of the stress and everything that I was— so how worn out I was, I didn't realize that for months I'd only been chest breathing. I was so stressed, I wouldn't even expand my belly. I was breathing all right here, which is gonna— it's not good for you anyway. But before I started that workout, I woke up, I did the inhaler, albuterol. That's a vasodilator— I'm sorry, a bronchodilator. Uh, I did antihistamines, decongestants. I took 3 Hydroxycuts, which is ephedrine, and drank 2 cups of coffee. I later learned, at least from what the doctor told me, that that is a cocktail for an anxiety attack. I said, that was just trying to wake up. But yeah, so I hyperventilate. I forget all about combat breathing, box breathing.

I forget about paper bags and, and I'm just that worn out. And the truck driver undercover knocked on my door right about that time. I'm just in a towel, but I'm as white as a sheet. All my pores are open. I'm just sweating. My lips are all tight. He's like, are you okay? I said, I don't think so. So we go sit on the balcony overlooking the ocean. We're talking. And he's like, you know, sometimes— he'd been around for a while. He's a very experienced guy. He goes, sometimes we get this extra stress or these stressors because we're fearing the end of the case. Sometimes we're fearing the fact that they're going to find out who you really are. Sometimes we're fearing the fact that you're going to betray him. Sometimes he starts putting these things. He goes, is it any of those? I said, it is now. I said, dadgummit, man, I didn't have any of that in my head and now I do. And I took a nap, self-medicated and went back out. I should have went home, but I didn't. And when I went home from that trip, wheels up to wheels down, out cold, woke up to the plane hitting the ground.

Hardly ever happens to me, if ever. Same thing from Houston to McAllen. I get home and I bet you the first day I slept 20 hours. Um, then the next, from that Sunday, I think Sunday to Friday, I was over 16 hours of sleep a day. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't sick. I know what they both feel like. I was that tired. So come Friday morning, uh, I'll say a former friend of mine, I don't think he likes me anymore, but I still love him, but it is what it is. But he called me and he says, um, he said, how you doing, country? And I said, not too good. He was calling to tell me about another case that was going to be coming up and maybe we could do it or something. He let me talk for an hour and I basically talked my— he let me convince myself that I needed to self-report to Safeguard. And that Friday evening I put a call in because I knew the psychologist, one of them anyway, was a friend of mine. And I called her and said, hey, I don't know what's going on, but I think I'm crashing.

So they came down within 2 weeks or so. They came down and did an on-site assessment, special on-site assessment, and, uh, I was diagnosed as over-assigned. And they put me on timeout. I'm not going to be doing any undercover work for a minimum of 6 months. Go back to the office, you know, reintegrate if you need to. I really didn't because I was still a case agent during the whole thing, but Um, but I did finish the case on the phone. Um, they, they allowed me to do that. So what I did to help solidify everything for Boston's office and the case team is I stayed on the phone. I gave a story that I was getting divorced, that I was going to relocate my soon-to-be ex and my two kids to El Paso where her parents were at, because I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror if I didn't do that. But once that's done, I'm coming north. I'm sick of this heat. That's the way I laid it out. Everybody was like, hell yeah. I mean, there was calls from Joe Dogs trying to get some kilos of cocaine from me, just talk about a club we were creating to be a support group for the Outlaws, talking to Scott Town all the time.

And then I got a call from one of the— there was a member named Tim Sylvia, not UFC Tim Sylvia. But, um, but Tim Sylvia, he'd been in prison a lot, and he's an outlaw. He's a Brockton chapter outlaw. I met him before my crash, and he called me and he says, hey, you know, he knew about the drug deal and all that stuff. And he's like, you know what I'm in? And I go, no, not really. He goes, I'm into that magic powder stuff. And I'm like, okay. I said, why? He's like, yeah. I said, okay. And he says, basically in crappy code, he says, if I can get a kilo of cocaine at $18,000 price, he's got enough to buy 10 of them right now. He also had a Hummer too, uh, a $100,000 BMW he wanted to report stolen, stuff like that. So I called the case team and said, hey, do you want me to set this up or you want me just leave it alone? They said, nah, man, set it up. So we set it up, and, uh, when he goes— when my truck drivers, the they were posing as my truck drivers when they go to pick up the stolen cars from Tim Sylvia.

I mean, if you hear the recording, you can even hear me on the phone. I'm broken. I'm like, hey, I'm in— I'm literally in my garage in McAllen going, what corner are you on? All right, they're over here. Okay, he's over here. Hook them up. They pull up. You can hear me on the phone. You can hear the other undercover talking to me. And then he puts Tim on the phone and Tim's like, hey, You know, I got this, this, this. I said, yeah, okay. I said, when are you going to report the BMW stolen? He said, Friday. I said, can you wait till Saturday? I said, I just need— I want, I want a 24-hour buffer to make sure that thing's in Mexico. He's like, yeah. And, uh, and I— they put the undercover back on the phone and he says, how much am I supposed to pay him? I said, are the cars there? He's like, yeah. I said, $21,000. And he gives him $21,000. And then when they were loading the cars, Tim solicited them for the 10 kilos at $18 apiece. And they said, yeah, we can do that. So the case ended with a reversal.

It went— they were showing up with the 10 kilos, and then the SWAT team takes down Tim Silvia, and that starts all the arrests off. Wow. And what was rough for me is, well, I didn't get to go be part of the takedown, but I'm pretty sure that was probably Safeguard saying no travel.

Um, you'll— you would have wanted to do the takedown?

I would like to have been there. It's a great tool to have, um, especially if somebody's in there lying, uh, and then you come walking in like the TV and go, hey, just so we're clear, I'm Special Agent Scott Payne, FBI agent. And then they go, uh, are you like, all right, yeah, I was lying. Or if I feel like that person may be a threat to me, I, I may want to go talk to them at the arrest. And say, hey, this is what this is. Maybe if there was a source involved and they think they know who it is, maybe I'm going to tell them this is not the pissing contest you want to get into, kind of thing. I always— my— for me, my best defense is a good offense. That's just me. I just— if I see somebody I put in jail eyeballing me, I'll walk right up to them. Hey man, how's it going, brother? Hey, you clean? You on the straight and narrow? But, uh, So I was putting on training. It's the first time I taught the block on the outlaw thing, and, um, it's the night of the takedown.

I've had to draw diagrams of all the houses I've been in, all the apartments, for all the SWAT teams and arrest teams are going to be hitting all these places, which was stressful too because I'm a tactical guy and I'm like, I don't want anybody getting hurt because I wrote something down wrong. But, um, I go back to my room and I already told you UC school Long hours. I go back to my room and my phone's chirping and I check and it's a message from Scott Towne and I chirp him up. Nextels were big. I chirp him up and he says, raspy voice because he's just woke up, it's the middle of the night, he goes, hey, I just want you to know, uh, your, uh, your truck driver and that other guy's always with him and Big Timmy, they got locked up. And I'm like, what? He goes, they just got locked. Somebody just called me, said they're in jail. And I said, well, you know, they're not doing anything for me, but they do stuff on the side. I said, let me figure out what's going on, something to that effect. And he says, he says, basically he says, I'm gonna get up, get ready, I'm gonna find out what's going on and I'm gonna call you back.

And I said, okay. Our last words to each other was, he says, I love you, brother. And I said, I love you too. And about 40 minutes later, SWAT team at his house. And he went to prison.

Damn.

Yeah, that's real.

Is he still in prison?

No, he's out.

You worry about that at all?

No, that bond was real.

You don't worry about that?

No. No, not with him. That bond was real. He's, uh, he made a mistake, but he's a good guy in my eyes.

Talk to him, huh? You think you'll ever talk to him? Have you?

I can either confirm or deny because I have not been given permission, but the bond is real.

Right on, man.

Yeah, yeah. There's been people that I've put in prison, undercover, put in prison. So not just me arresting them, me betraying them. Uh, I'm going through some family stuff. I won't talk too much about it, but I'm, I'm going through a divorce. And let's just say that December 29th of last year to middle of February this year It's touch and go. And I know you know about it. I know you've probably got military friends. I'm— I gave up. I felt like a failure. I didn't want to be here anymore. I'm not saying that to get sympathy. What I'm saying is, is at least I practice what I preach because I turned this block into mental health at the end. But I used to talk about it in past tense. But now I can talk about it in present tense. But at least I made phone calls. I tell people all the time when I finish training, I'm like, if somebody else doesn't say it, because if your listeners don't know this, first responders and military, and I mean first responders, I mean medic, fire, and blue and gun toters, law enforcement, medic, fire, law enforcement, military, we are very high, if not number one in suicide.

We are very high, if not number one, in substance abuse, divorce, and dying within 5 years after retiring. So as of July 1st of this summer, I'm not that statistic because I made it over 5. But I made the phone calls, and it is a blessing that 2 of my pastors literally live 2 doors from me. Um, And I was surrounded by good people. People had to come and spend the night. Um, and then in February, I took a turn for the better. I took a turn for the better. But I tell people, number one, it does not mean you're weak if you need help. That's a stigma we've got to get rid of in the first responder military. It doesn't mean you're weak, in my opinion. It If you go— I'll say this, I said, I, I tell when I'm teaching stuff at the end, I'm like, I get the proverbial don't talk to the psychologist at your police department because what if somebody leaks? Because it happens all the time. I get that. But go get help somewhere. I also get counselor or psychologist hurt. You go in and you meet somebody and it did not go well at all.

I parlayed this from my pastor. But have you ever had food poisoning?

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Did you quit eating? Nope. No, no. I might not get a sub at that place anymore, but I'm gonna go get one somewhere else, you know? So go find it. And I tell people this, I go, look, look at it like this. They've got a toolbox and it may have tools you've never even seen before. Right? If I gave you a hammer and said build a house, that's going to be tough. But if I roll 3 semis of the best hydraulic— whatever we got, anything we want, best tools in the world— it's gonna be a blast. We might even be able to build one in 30 minutes like they do on TV. But maybe they can give you a tool and you can take that back to your toolbox. It's just the suicide rate's just too much. It's just We got to do better.

So it's a lot of avenues now to go down to— yes, keep yourself busy, get yourself out of those holes. Yeah, we talk about a lot of them on this show.

Yeah, uh, I was talking to somebody out there with the, the ibogaine and ayahuasca and stuff. Um, I can't do it. They told me I can't do it. I've got a buddy of mine that's, uh, he's, he's big into the ayahuasca And when all that was going on, um, he was setting me up to where I could go get a treatment. But, uh, when I— in 2002, I went down. We figured out what it was, it was back surgery complications. But basically the long and short of it is for 3 weeks I felt like I couldn't breathe. I would eat this much food, feel like I couldn't breathe. Well, by the time we figured out what it was, turns out there's some damage done. And turns out when I crashed and had that panic attack in 2007 or '08, my mind reverted back to 2002. That's when the counselor's like, oh, because she was like, she's like, have you ever been scared before? I said, yeah, like really scared. I go, oh yeah, yeah, 2002. I said, my wife and daughter flew out. I said, I ate one thing, I was at SWAT training, I couldn't breathe, I panicked, I panicked for 3 weeks.

And as I was saying it, I went, oh no. And she goes, what? And I go, my mind reverted back to 2002. And she says, you got post-traumatic stress. And at that point, even as an educated guy, I was like, but I wasn't in the military. I didn't know you could get post-traumatic stress out because I only heard it, you know, from like war and stuff. And, uh, yeah, she told me after I told her all that stuff from the Outlaw years, those 3 years, she says, uh, Oh my. She goes, oh my goodness, Scott, the average person would have crashed a year and a half ago. Oh yeah. And I said, thanks. And she said, that wasn't a compliment. And I said, but I'm better than half the— I'm better than average, right? So I say all that because I think we need to do better about getting out there and our brothers and sisters making the phone call.

Um, there's a lot of things coming out now. There's a, um, company called Envy Mind Health.

Okay, you heard about that?

You've heard about the wearables that are, you know, the track your, um, your vitals, heart rate, all that kind of stuff, sleep.

I got a friend, uh, Johnny Wilson, and, uh, I know Joe, that's what I was talking about.

You know Johnny Wilson?

I shit you not, that's who I was talking about. He's gonna hook me up with ayahuasca.

Yeah. Okay.

I'm an alert instructor.

So he started, uh, Envy Mind Health. So you put, you put these wearable, you know, it's Oura Ring, um, any of them, you know, the, the WOOP, the WHOOP, um, and you can, you can make it so that these go, they kind of report into a friend group. So you got your phone, right?

Awesome.

And if, and so if your vitals start Your sleep starts getting fucked up, your heart rate starts rising, you know, all these, all these vitals start—

I would have loved to seen what mine would have read before my panic attack.

So it'll kind of alert your friend group, and then your friend group could be like, oh, what the fuck's going on? They'll call you up, say, hey Scott, how you feeling? You doing all right? I see you're not sleeping, so your heart rate's getting up there.

Huge accountability, you know what I mean?

And it's pretty— it's actually pretty cool. You know what I mean?

And so you didn't tell me that because probably because you listen to me cry about all my ways. But he was a lifeline call, though.

But there is a— there's a lot of good stuff coming out now.

Well, I mean, I want to hit on that, but real quick, I want to say this. You might want to clip it back. I don't know how you do it, but I just want you to know what I was— what led me into telling you all that stuff about the divorce and hurting one of the people I put in prison who I betrayed. Was my hugest emotional support animal during that entire damn time.

Damn, man.

I'm talking checked in in the morning, checked in at lunch, checked in at dinner every day. Wake up, you son of a bitch. You're one of the most alpha male Viking dudes I've ever met, and you can beat this. I mean, who would ever? Wow. Who would ever? I told him, I said, like, look, man, you need to choose your friends better. So what are you talking about? I said, I put you in prison. Still to this day, he's like, he's like, you're hanging out with a felon. And I go, that's true. Yeah, I'm retired, whatever. Uh, but, uh, so go back to, go back to, uh, Johnny. Um, I swear I didn't know that. So I met Johnny through ALERT, the FBI and ALERT, A-L-E-R-R-T, uh, based out of San Marcos, Texas. After the Sandy Hook school massacre Department of Justice from the top all the way down. Obama, even during— they said no training, whatever, we couldn't travel or nothing. They said, um, an agency in the Department of Justice needs to be the lead on active shooter training for law enforcement, and they chose the FBI. I'll say, not being biased, but I'll say I think it was a good choice because the FBI has a SWAT team in every field division, and we have a principal tactical instructor in every field office.

In order to be the principal tactical instructor, you have to be a firearms instructor currently. You have to be SWAT certified, all these building blocks. Then you become an active shooter instructor. So they picked the FBI and my peers in Quantico and the tactical training unit were going around and looking at different programs. There's several programs out there, but they settled in with Alert and we married each other in 2013. So in 2013, I think about 100 and 25 to 150 tactical instructors from the FBI over 5 weeks, a week class. But over 5 weeks, we all went and got certified as active shooter instructors, certified instructors with Alert. So all through those years, I was helping teach and getting certified in the solo officer response, a race, which is outdoors, a lot of military type stuff, getting certified. So when I retired from the FBI, I applied to be an adjunct instructor. So now I'm not getting paid by the FBI, but like 2 or 3 weeks ago, put on a class. Somebody requested, they hosted. You see the classes you put in for them, you got a regional manager. And I went and we taught a 1-week train the trainer.

And if you pass, you're a certified instructor with Alert. My first class post FBI on probation. My first class was Johnny, and we've been best friends ever since. Yeah, man. How the hell did I not know this? I don't know, bro. So the other thing is, is, I mean, man, he saved his own— I mean, he did end up getting amputated, but he saved his own life on that motorcycle wreck. He was guiding in. We're talking about the same Johnny Wilson.

No, we're not talking about the same Johnny Wilson.

I saw you looking and I was wondering. JSOC. Nope. Nope. All right. It's a different Johnny Wilson.

Different Johnny Wilson.

That's crazy.

He's not an amputee.

Okay. Because that's why I was like, man, he didn't tell— why would he not tell me he's got these little accountability buddy things? All right, so another Johnny Wilson. But I'll tell you about my Johnny Wilson. He's JSOC. He did have a motorcycle wreck. He saved his own with the stop the bleed. Had a bystander, uh, makeshift tourniquet, got an EMS in, but he did end up losing from here down. But he's the one— that's just crazy because you said it— he's the one that was telling me a lot about this stuff. And I— and maybe I should preface it with this: I'm friends with the owners of CPI, Cellular Performance Institute. They're based out of Tijuana. Um, they are partnered with the UFC. So you watch the Octagon, you'll see CPI Stem Cells. I'm kind of a spokesperson for them, and they now have— well, it's not them, but there is a nonprofit, uh, the Miracle Hope Foundation raises money for first responders and military to be able to get those treatments because they are pricey. But, um, they're doing a lot of things to help. I've seen a lot, I've met a lot of people, I've been like 3 times now.

I've met a lot of former military, former spec ops, and their body's healing from all the stem cells. So the pain's— they're pain-free for the first time in forever. And now you're like, okay, that helps mentally, right? That's going to help cut back on this. I don't want to live anymore. And one of the times I was coming back— oh, let me say this about CPI. The stem cells they do down there is If you do stem cells in the United States, you're probably getting bovine or your own body fat. It's just not as much. And it's not umbilical— no umbilical cord donations. And down there you get like, I mean, I got 20 million in one shoulder, 10 million in that one, 70 million in my neck, 120 million in an IV. You're getting hyperbaric oxygen chamber, ozone therapy, all this stuff. And there's some amazing things happening, but it's also helping with the mental health. Yeah, a lot. Um, I will say it's the best hospital stay I've ever had. People hear Tijuana and I was sketched too, man. I worked the border for 6 and a half years. We talked about cartel and I went down there and I'm like, it's where you stay, restaurant district, where the hospital is, medical district.

It's, uh, best hospital stay I've ever had because my last hospital stay in the United States, I almost died. I think we were talking offline, but I had a hip replacement And 13 days later, I was full-blown sepsis and almost died. Had 2 hip surgeries in 14 days. And that hospital stay, Labor Day weekend, understaffed, you're not getting your medicine. I'm down there at the, at the center, man. I'm like, yeah. So coming back, one of the last times I came back, I'm coming out of the, the Sheraton Hotel, I'm hopping on a bus, a shuttle bus. I see a bunch of dudes that look like They were CPI people, and we start talking. It's all former military, and they were coming from AMBIO. So they started telling me all about AMBIO, and, uh, and then the documentary is on Netflix, and I watched it. But what I heard is this, and my friend Johnny's the one that, that found this out for me, but, um, in 2002 when I Had the whatevers. Doctor prescribed venlafaxine. Effexor is the name. I've been on it pretty much ever since. So I was getting ready to go do ayahuasca.

I was going to try that. Ibogaine, you can tell me. I don't know, man. I'm like 18 hours or more. I'm like, I don't know. I might be scared. I'm not— might be— I might be— I am scared. But what they came back, like 3 or 4 different doctors said, if you're on that, an SSRI, an SSNI, it's going to compete with what the ayahuasca and the ibogaine or the DMT is trying to do. And they said you could go into seizures or you won't have anything happen at all, or it'll be a bad ride. And I'm like, I don't want any of those. But for whatever reason, you can do ketamine if you're on an SSRI or an SSNI and you still dissociate. And I've done 6 of those. I've done 6 treatments with that.

Really?

Yeah.

How are those?

I dissociated, man. I was— yeah, I was flying, you know.

Did you get anything out of it?

Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. Because I was, I was crying a lot because that was, uh, that was during some of my— that, that rough 2 and a half month stretch, I guess. But man, I'd just be going in crying. As I'm going in, I'm going, please stop this pain, please heal me, please heal me, you know. And then I would be— but I had some epiphanies. But I really had a good guide too. I mean, that helps when they come in and talk to you, if they're really knowledgeable and a good listener, or just good good person with great advice. But one that hit me was, I have a lot more love to give. It's a weird one. I came out and I'm like, what? And then another one, I came out and I was like, the Lord put me here to serve. Pretty much what I've done. Still trying to. Right on, man. And then, you know, that book's finished. Maybe I'm starting my new book.

Good for you.

Yeah. So we're trying. And for some odd reason, I would end up at least 3 of the 6. I would end up in the woods and I'm looking at all the trees and they all turn around and they're all Sasquatches from that movie Harry and the Hendersons from the '80s. And they're like, you can't control— like, you're flying and I'm flying. I'm like, Okay. Oh, oh, I'm back. I remember this spot. Okay, okay. And I go, oh, and I look and they all turn around and they go, mm. So one of these days I'm going to see Harry and the Hendersons on TV and it may throw me into some kind of ketamine. That is crazy.

I just introduced my kids to Harry and the Hendersons. They're obsessed with Bigfoot.

That's so good. They love—

nobody talks about that movie anymore.

That's fucking weird. But even like, they think it's just he's going off by himself at the end and all all the— yeah, all the trees are Sasquatches. Yeah, I did, I did. I had some good things out of it. Um, but I don't know how that compares to ibogaine or, or ayahuasca or DMT.

Well, I've done two ibogaines.

Okay.

First one went great, second one didn't go so great.

Uh, so that's what I'm afraid of. How many hours?

Oh, I think this last one was about 8. I think we started about 8 PM and I was still in it. I finally got out of the room at 4 PM the next day. So what's it, 20 hours?

Dang.

Yeah. And then I did 5 MEO and, uh, pretty sure I experienced hell.

Yeah, what's the 5? What is that, the DMT?

It's the toad venom. Yeah, it's DMT.

And that's like a— they say that's like a 30-minute ride or something, right? Just as soon as you hit it, they're like, boom, you're flying. Yeah, yeah.

I don't even like talking about it, it's so fucking dark.

Yeah, yeah.

They call it the God molecule, but I didn't feel any God, not on that one. And the first one went great. Quit drinking. I'm what, 4 and a half years off booze now.

So really?

Yeah. Yeah.

Crazy. You think that's the DMT or the ibogaine, or is it the both together?

Oh, that's the ibogaine. I mean, it's, it's got, uh, I think it's pretty much scientifically proven at this point that it replenishes receptors and in your brain, so it takes cravings away and can cure addiction.

That's what they're saying ketamine does. It works right here.

Yeah, yeah.

But for some reason you can still do it with— and what it, what it'll do, it'll help you back off. It'll help. That's why I started it. They said if you do the ketamine, you can back off of the effects or the venlafaxine.

Yeah, mine was a, was a light switch. I just didn't want any booze anymore, didn't want any really anything. And it's stuck. Everything but marijuana. And then I quit that off this last one. It's only been about a month, but yeah, I don't know. You know, I got— it's helped a lot of people.

I got mixed feelings about it. I wonder why. So what I was instructed is do the ketamine to back off the effects, or then you're off the effects, or then you can go do the ibogaine and the ayahuasca. That's why I was doing it. But at a certain point, with everything going on, I was down and I'm like, I'm doing too much, there's too much going on. I'm heartbroken, I'm going through all this. Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah. Um, and, uh, I just, I just went back to regular medicine. I'm like this until this all settles it down. But I, I would— I really would like to try it.

Which one, ibogaine or both?

Yeah, I mean, my friends that I know were pushing ayahuasca more. I've not done that one. I don't know, it's mushroom-based, I guess.

Have you done— have you done just regular psilocybin? Maybe try that.

I wonder if I can do that with it. I just don't want to bust out into seizures, and I don't want to have a bad trip.

That would be bad.

I know. I don't want to be— I'll be that guy flopping off the cliff. What happened? I don't know. He had a bad trip.

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Let's do it. So, um, the book, it's kind of like the bookends. Um, it was one of the last big cases I did. Um, actually kind of got me thinking about retirement because you coming up to 50 years old, how many young, young guy groups can you infiltrate unless you're the pedophile, you know, giving them beer and stuff? So when you say white supremacy, a lot of most people picture like KKK, you know, and I did. There's stories of that in the book too. I infiltrated them. It's a little more comical than serious, I think. But the base is this. They're called accelerationists. So by the time I retired, Let me say it this way. When we started this investigation, it was considered kind of cringe if you were a white supremacist to be an accelerationist. But by the time we finished, almost 90% of your National Socialist, neo-Nazi white supremacists online were claiming accelerationists. And this is what this is. There's a book called Siege by James Mason. He's a longtime white supremacist. The book is essentially articles of interviews But he highlights and admires people like Satan, Charles Manson, you know, good role models.

But it's the way I was taught is this. When I infiltrated the base, I was told by them, hey, this is what we are. An accelerationist does not believe that there's a political solution for the white race. They believe that society is going to collapse on its own. or for man-made events, and they want to speed it up. But they want to speed it up through guerrilla warfare tactics. Small hits like power grid over here, train derailment over here, poison water system here, murdered lefty here. Just chaos. Um, not a lot of forethought or afterthought, you know. But it's, uh, the accelerationist views kind of came about in the '80s. I believe the group was called the Iron Order, or just the Order. But they were the ones that were taking off armored cars. And I tell people, if you want to picture militia anti-government, because militias aren't illegal, but anti-government meets doomsday prepper meets white supremacists. So we're out there training. You're always building your battle rattle, your kit for the boogaloo. And they refer to the boogaloo as like D-Day. The kickoff to the race war. But they are the new neo— they're neo-Nazis, they're National Socialists but accelerationists.

And this group, The Base, came out after Atomwaffen. Atomwaffen was created by James Mason, who wrote the book Siege. But The Base, we started getting from our world working partners and stuff. These accelerationists are pretty big on like what they call flyering or stickering. And, uh, or postering. Essentially, it's me and you, we're all hooded up, we're all covered, we park here, we walk down as far as we're going to go, don't get picked up by any cameras. And on the way back up, maybe you got the spray glue, you're spraying it, and I'm slapping the, I'm slapping the, the poster on there. And we're just going up, and then the poster would be like, save your race, join the base. And there'd be pictures of like training and some swastikas and stuff on it, and then there'd be a QR code. You hit that QR code, it takes you right to a BitChute website to a propaganda video to help recruit you. Because what I'll say is this, I've seen, I've seen a lot of, you know, you see chatter and some haters after some of the interviews you do. I just want everybody to understand, I'm talking about far-right extremism because that's what my skill set led me into.

But I have peers, mentors, people I've been blessed to mentor that work all other sides of extremism. And I will tell you, if you look at radical jihad, if you look at far-right extremism and far-left extremism, the techniques are very, very similar. The radicalization of teens and young ones online is very, very similar. And they all end up in their belief system, usually end up with their own little space, whether it's a caliphate, an ethnostate, whatever they want to call it, where it's almost socialism you get stuff for free and it's only whites over here, or you got your caliphate over here, you got this over here. It's very similar. But they came on our radar because these flyers and stuff were coming up. But they're also popping up all over the world. So our world working partners, whether it be Australia, London, whatever, they're reaching out. And we determined— we were able to figure out that the leader of the base is a guy named Ronaldo Nazaro, but online he went by Norman Spears and Roman Wolf and other monikers. Um, this guy is a U.S. citizen, uh, born Villanova grad, former Army intel.

Trying to think if I missed anything. He contracted with the DOJ somewhere. I don't— first they were saying it was FBI, but I don't think it ended up being the FBI. Uh, and now resides in St. Petersburg, Russia with his Russian family, and he is trying to start— they're trying to make a comeback. We pretty much made them defunct after our case, but they're trying to make a comeback. They've claimed some murders in Ukraine and stuff. But so these flyers start coming and we're getting all the reports. Meanwhile, we have coverage online of whether they're covert employees or whatever, but you're seeing this chatter online and it might be a moniker like TMB. And we're like, who is this guy, man? He is spewing some crazy stuff. Because if you spew too much crazy stuff, like in those groups and on those apps, they're going to start— they're going to say you're glowing. Then that means you're talking Fed talk or you're a snitch, or they'll be like, hey, man, that's Fed talk. In other words, you're going to— you keep talking like that, the Feds are going to be in this room kind of thing.

Um, but they— a lot of the groups use like Telegram, Wire, uh, WhatsApp, maybe Riot, Threema, 4chan, 8chan, 12chan, Discord, all these things. Now, am I saying that everybody on Discord is doing bad stuff? No, not at all. But do bad people go to Discord to do bad stuff? Absolutely. You know, it's like I tell parents with kids these days, I mean Look, man, if your kid's playing Roblox and Fortnite and Minecraft, awesome. If they're playing those games with a headset on, awesome. But you need to know who they're talking to.

Yeah, we've covered that quite a bit on this show. 764 called. Yeah, all the shit that's going on on Roblox.

So 764 has an accelerationist view. So if you look at your accelerationist groups, like the Base, like Atomwaffen and these other ones, if you start scratching at the surface, you're going to probably find at least one member in there that's messing with Order of Nine Angles. And Order of Nine Angles is white supremacy, but heavily, heavily, heavily satanic. You'll see Order of Nine Angles tied in with 764 and Cult and Hell and all those other groups. Not necessarily white supremacy, but still that kind of accelerationist anti-government chaos thing.

So how did this pop up on your radar?

Well, I am— I was involved in the undercover program. I was the undercover coordinator at my office. We were running undercover operations. And so I'm always working with those headquarters units. And I don't know who told me or how— maybe I was there when it happened. But over time it's like, man, we got to put somebody in on this group. And I'm like, hey, I'm free. If y'all think I'm good for it, I'll do it. And they're like, yeah. So I had a good buddy of mine who's a task force officer, really good online. I had him sit down with me and I said, hey, I need you to help me build myself up online so I can start bumping into these guys. Because they were recruiting online on Gab. You'd go in there and the channel group would be for whites only. And you're like, well, I wonder what I'm going to find in here. Or it'll be like 14 words. Well, that's That's the 14 words coined by David Lane. It's renowned in white supremacy. So I go on, I created an identity, and I go on to Gab and I start looking at some of their stuff.

And they're like posting, hey, we're a unit, survivalist group, and we like to train and blah, blah, blah. And okay, so I email. It says, hey, if you're interested, email here. So I like some of their stuff. They like me back. You know, I got my best friends now. We liked each other online. Uh, so I email, and for about a week to a week and a half, I'm getting email questions, questions, questions, questions.

And I got questions.

I mean, like, uh, my ethnicity, um, height, weight, what skill set do I have, and any kind of fighting, training, guns, stuff like that. What are you going to bring to the table? What groups have I been a part of? Is there anybody in my family that's non-white? Things like that, all kinds of stuff. So I do that, and then I'm looking, I'm like, man, they're only answering me during this block of time during the day. And I'm sitting there, I'm looking, I'm going, I wonder what time it is in Russia right now. And I'm like, I bet you it's Nazaro answering my questions, because it was like if he worked till like 5 o'clock or something, it would always answer right in this. But it's It was that evening sweet spot time in Russia. And I was— I'm pretty sure we didn't— I don't think we confirmed it, but I'm 99.9% sure it was him because then I'm instructed to, hey, download the Wire app. And again, these, these, these extremists are using these apps because they believe they're encrypted. So some of them are encrypted end to end. They're based out of like Sweden or somewhere else where the feds here are going to have a hard time subpoenaing that information.

So it's essentially to thwart law enforcement activity. So they instruct me to download the Wire app. I get on it and I hit them up and I'm told that I'm going to do a— it ended up being about 4 or 5 people on the call, live phone call panel interview. So I'm like trying to school myself. I'm like, I've read some of Siege. I got some things I know I could talk about with Siege. All right, good accelerationist identity. I know that my backstory is I was a skinhead. I've already got all that covered in South Carolina. Boom, boom, boom. Got everything lined up and I'm ready. So I said, well, what if they grab me? What if they tell me to take my phone and do a 360 in the room, you know, cut the video on and do a turn? I'm like, hey, let me go down in the woods. So I go down in the woods. I tell my wife and kids, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna be in the woods on an undercover call. Don't be coming out screaming my name and stuff. I'll come up when I'm done. So I'm down there, it's about 10 minutes to the call.

It's before I had this arm sleeved out with tats. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked and my whole arm was black. And I went— I looked down, there's that many mosquitoes. My whole arm was covered. I was like, screw this. In fact, I'm not going to call from the woods. And I went running up to my old truck and I made sure it was clean, nothing's in it that says Scott Payne or anything like that. And I drive over to an abandoned parking lot, uh, closed movie parking lot. And I do the call. It lasts about an hour and 15 minutes. Some of the voices on there were very young, very young. And I was asked questions like, how are you with taking instructions from somebody younger than you? There's a lot of young people in this group, you know. Are you, are you willing to accomplish anything or are you willing to do anything to accomplish a goal? They told me about somebody who had a relative that was like— it put like a sliver of non-white in them and they said it and they booted them. But they also explained to me what their goals are, what they're doing, preparing the kit for the boogaloo, what accelerationism is.

And at the end of the call, Nazaro says, look, I'd like to give a 24-hour rest period. Now you know what we're about. And we know about you. Gives us a chance to decide if we want you, gives you a chance to decide if you want to be in it. And true to his word, about 24 hours later I got a ping and it said that they were willing to— they would love to have me join the base. And I said, I'd love to join. And then they said, where are you at? And I said, East Tennessee. And they said, the closest cell— C-E-L-L, because I got a country accent— the closest cell to you is in North Georgia. And you'll be contacted by the, by the cell leader. And I'd mentioned that we had seen this guy, TMB, online, like spewing stuff, and everybody was like, man, who is this dude? Wow, man, he is talking some crazy, crazy stuff. Well, guess who ended up being my cell leader? TMB. Wow. Yeah, we had no idea. I was like, holy crap, it's him. And I'm called, and now I got to go down to Rome, Georgia, to do a face-to-face meeting.

To be vetted in real life, IRL, whether they refer to in real life. And then at that point, I'd be brought in. So we create all that. You're working with different case teams. You're trying to identify people and stuff. And I go down to meet the case team in Georgia, and they just ping me a location. So I pull in, it's a cemetery. I'm like, I start laughing. I get out, I go, because there's a whole task force there. I'm like, I'm like, you guys trying to tell me something by having me meet you in a cemetery? Pretty morbid way to start, you know. Uh, and then they say, hey man, do you mind if we slap a tracker on your truck? I said, no, go ahead. Because you got to remember, I've never met these people. At that point, I don't even think we knew who TMB was. We knew we were going to meet TMB, but I don't think we knew who he was yet. So Picture, you've got an undercover going in, could be hopping in the car with somebody, you don't know who they are, we don't know where you're going, and a storm's coming in.

So that's going to cut out some aerial footage, you know what I mean, some aerial surveillance. So they had instructed me, um, when I got— they said, when you get to Rome, uh, take a picture. Oddly enough, there was a statue of a Roman wolf in Rome. Take a picture of that, send it to me. I want you to park in this parking lot, these kind of And I remember somebody on the team was like, hey man, you think they're watching you? I go, yes, they're watching me. That's why they're telling me to park in a certain place, send pictures and stuff. So they put the tracker on, I go and I'm riding around. I can't find a parking spot in Spartan, which is fine with me because it allows me to loop the neighborhood downtown a couple of times, acting like I don't know where I'm going, looking for a spot. But I can also be looking to see if I pick up counter surveillance or whatever, right? Or surveillance on me. So I found a spot and I pull up in there.

Did you pick up any?

No, I didn't see any. I didn't see any. But the reason is, is there were only two of them. I didn't know, but I was looking. So I found a spot. It's behind the coffee shop, I think. And I'm like, hey, I'm parked over here. I couldn't find a spot. Here's a picture of the Roman Wolf. And he goes, where are you at? And I'm like, yeah, I'm over here. He goes, okay, I'll see you. So they come walking up. It's, it's TMB and a kid that went by the name Pestilence. I say kid, um, he's 19 at that time. And TMB's probably like 6'2", maybe 220, a little frumpy build, moppy hair, he needed a haircut, thick glasses, um, but thicker dude. He comes walking up kind of dressed normal. Pestilence is more like, um, tactical 8-inch boots, black BDUs bloused into his boots, but a black tank top that has some black metal band on it, which will be more like your satanic, you know, death metal, black metal stuff. Uh, those are two different things. Black metal. Um, so I introduced myself. Hey man, White Warrior. Okay, we shake hands and stuff, and I'm pretty sure they're gonna pat me down.

It's our first meet, you know. I would do your due diligence, you know. And he says, put your phone in airplane mode. And I'm like, okay. So I put it in airplane mode. And then he pulls out this thing. And I'd never seen it, one like it. I mean, it looked like a Geiger counter to me. I'm like, what the hell is— I mean, it's big. It was like this big radio thing, had a triangle card sticking out of it. And I'm like, hmm. I mean, I'm not rusty. I've seen plenty of RF detectors and things like that. But I'm like, what is it? So he wants me. No, nothing. He goes inside my truck. Nothing. As he's walking down the driver's side slowly, at least it's another adrenaline dump moment. Not quite like the basement naked, you know, but he's walking down and this machine starts going nuts. It starts going to the lights are going off and I go, oh, shit. It. It's picking up the tracker. I don't know exactly where it's at, but I saw the agent under my driver's side quarter panel and he put it up. And as he's getting close, I'm like, I start easing my right leg back because I'm like, they're— my cover team's not— they're not even close.

It's about to go. I'm ready. I'm like, yeah, I don't know if they're armed. I know I'm not, you know. And right when he's getting to it, because we were on a steep hill, there was power lines and they were pretty low. And Pestilence says, Hey, you think it could be the power lines? He turns. Divine intervention for me, man. He's— I'm like, golly. He turns and walks over, and the power lines make it go nuts. And he's like, shit, yes, the power lines. You need to follow us. I said, okay. Well, I hop in the car, and I'm calling. I don't know how many people are watching me. I'm on the phone, but I'm driving, and I'm doing the stiff lip thing, you know, my, my— from my Southern roots, you know. I'm like, hey, can you guys hear anything? They're like, yeah. And I'm You need to cut the tractor off. They're like, what? You got to cut it off. And it seemed like we went back. They weren't, they weren't like arguing with me. It was more of a safety concern. They were like, man, we don't know if we can cut it off remotely.

And if we cut it off, we don't know if we can get it back on. We don't even know where you're going. I said, I'm telling you right now, whatever they have is picking that up. And if you don't cut it off, it's going to be a quick undercover. It's going to be over. And then I follow them. And I don't know if they got it off or not. I'm just hoping they see me and they're following me. I hope they got it off. And I follow them and they pull into like an abandoned concrete plant. Like, I pull in and I look up and I'm like, oh, that's funny. Like, how many action movies have I seen where people get killed in an abandoned concrete plant? The hits are just coming today, you know? And, and I remember opening my arms up and the sky fell. I mean, the bottom of the sky fell out. So I felt like I was in a Creed video, you know? I was like, raining on me with arms wide open. And they check me and I'm fine. They check the truck. They got the tractor shut off.

So that was a— yeah. Then we go hit the— we go hit the liquor store and then go to Luke's TMB's property. His dad had 100 acres in Rome, Georgia. And I mean, gorgeous property. It's sad what was happening on it, but gorgeous property. An older house that they were renting out, and then they converted the barn into a residential top half. So that's where we did all the training. And maybe I should point this out too. When I told you extremism lines up and is very similar, you know what the base is in Arabic? No. Al-Qaeda. No shit. Al-Qaeda in English means the base. What was Al Qaeda's MO? 3 to 5 man cells all over the world training for D-Day, waiting for the phone call. What's the MO for the base? 3 to 5 man cells all over the world training for D-Day, waiting for the phone call. Wow. Yeah. So shit. Try not to burn myself on that one. So I sit there. There's some crazy stuff you hear. Some of these cats, man, they believe that there's The earth is flat. There's flat earthers, there's concave earthers, there's hollow earth. And they believe that Hitler's still alive and he is living in hollow earth with 15-foot-plus tall— they're not Agarthans.

Maybe Agarthan is what it is. Big white redheaded ginger dudes, 15-plus foot tall. And I'm like, okay, I do have to have a little bit of fun, you know. And I go, so what are they waiting on? What, is there some significant event to come back and save the white race? Or what? Hitler, come on, what are you doing down there in Hollow Earth? Come on up here, buddy. You know, and they'd be talking like, you know, uh, Hitler conducted a study that proved that the Earth is concave. And I'm like, okay. And they're like, yeah, uh, so he shot a missile and eventually the missile hit the ground. And I go What if the missile ran out of gas or power? I go, well, no. I go, what if there was a hill or a mountain and it hit that? And then they were like, well, we don't know the nuances of the study, but it's been proven that the Earth is concave. I'm like, I go, what about the pictures? All the pictures of Earth from space? Oh, that's one photo that was made and it's been— it's been like, okay, man. But yet they had— they're armed.

You know, a lot of these people, Sean, they, they were young. They didn't have a job. If they did, it was just some odd job stuff. It was definitely not a 9 to 5. Didn't have a car. A lot of them had to borrow a car. But they're building a kit. They were wearing Crye Precision plate carriers. That's the same damn thing the FBI wears. They're not cheap.

Yeah.

You don't have a job, but that's what you're wearing. Uh, you got your gun belts. Um, one guy in the group, he did have a job. He was 30-something, former Army as well. He had a 6.5 Creedmoor and bought a $6,000 thermal scope.

Shit.

Because the idea was is that would level the playing field at night, even if he's not that good of a sniper. They were talking about taking out cops at nighttime. I mean, look, you All right, just finished the car stop, pow, take the cop out like the Sniper kind of DC sniper thing. Do that, you kill a cop, what do you get? You get bullets, you get a gun, you get a bulletproof vest, a radio. What else they got? They were talking all kinds of crazy stuff. So I started getting in the group, and the first— so that was a Friday I met them. Saturday I got up, came back over, two other members were there from the Maryland cell. They had driven in through the night. So there's five of us. And that day, uh, carbine, uh, firearms and tactical training was given by a 19-year-old kid. And it was good.

It was good.

It was good. He knew what he was doing. Yeah, it was good. Not the best. There were some things I saw that could use some correcting, but I was also the principal tactical instructor. I'm not saying I'm a be-all end-all, but yeah. From here to LA, if people got enough experience and have been around, most of your tactics and stuff should be similar. But definitely didn't come in as an instructor because I don't want to instruct them. That'd be a liability. I don't want to make anybody planning to do bad things a better shooter and a better attacker. But I'll tell you, it woke me up because I went back to put on the training for the Knoxville Division, and I told all the agents and Task force, everybody was out there shooting. I go, man, I was just with these people for like 3 days and a 19-year-old kid led clearing everything. And I'm like, okay, you're too young, I think, to have been in the military and be out, right? I'm like, I go, where did you learn this? I think it was gaming. And his dad took him to a range. And I mean, he was fast shooting, fast shooting and accurate.

Some of his shots were so fast and they did Adderall, so that probably had a little bit to do with it. But they, they was fast. And he wasn't like riding it. You know how you can ride the recoil, you know, get that little finger bump on an AR or a semi-automatic? Um, he wasn't doing that. And then you start hearing the plans and the hate. And so now we're uncovering more, so you're learning more about this stuff. But again, I say again as if I told it before. I hate when I do that. I'm sorry, but you have to look at, we've got reports of crazy stuff, we've got enough reason to open a case, but are these guys just spewing trash that's First Amendment protected, or are they actually planning on doing something wrong? And that's especially in domestic terrorism. That's where you get this, there's no domestic terrorism, there's no federal domestic terrorism statute. And even if they did one, I'm not sure what parameters you'd put on it. There are international terrorism, like, um, material support That's a good one. But there's not. So if you're working as an agent, we're trying to find out any crime they're doing that we can just get them off the street.

So I started meeting more people in the group. I'm getting— gaining more trust. And we are— we're seeing some people get doxxed. And for the listeners that don't know, that's basically you're getting outed. So what I like to say a lot to people is hate begets hate. I don't care whether you're left or right. Hate begets hate. If the right does something to the left, the left gets pissed, they retaliate. If the left does something to the right, the right's going to retaliate. It's hate begets hate. So one of the members, uh, was in South Africa and he got doxxed. And one thing the left is very good at, one of the things they're very good at, is doxxing. They will— I don't know who's paying them, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, but But they will show up at your house, your business, your parents' house, your kids' school, and just sit out there and yell and let everybody know you're a white supremacist, right? Um, and then the far-right extremist person feels like they just lost their whole damn life. So what are they going to do to retaliate? So this guy gets doxxed down in South Africa, and another member in our group who was also an Atomwaffen member, uh, says How many of our brothers have to fall before we retaliate?

And in the Hitler days, there was an operation called Kristallnacht. And Operation Kristallnacht was essentially the Nazis going down and smashing windows to Jewish— Jews, non-whites, uh, smashing windows, setting their businesses on fire, slashing tires, all that stuff. So this member called for Operation Kristallnacht during a certain amount of days. Well, several of the base members did go out and spray paint Jewish synagogues, and I think somebody did do something like slash some tires or something, but not everybody did. They were able to pull that, that base member off, uh, do a wall-off so we can arrest him without burning the entire case. So we're also learning a couple other things. Every time the base gets infiltrated, whether it be Vice news article journalist or whatever, every time they're infiltrated, their OPSEC operational security gets tighter and tighter. How did we get infiltrated? How do we stop that from happening again? And as I said, at this point, I'm still trying to figure out, yeah, we're hearing some hate, we're hearing, but there's no acts in furtherance of doing something bad.

Right now it's just, just talk training.

Yeah. Training and talking. Now, you might be able to get somebody— no, he wasn't a felon. Maybe a gun violation. I'm not ATF. I know that. I don't know all the gun violations, but maybe there's something you could get for, you know, ghost guns that they're making. So minor thing. Yeah. So we have a member in Canada and he went by Jimmy the Frog Rancher at first. I don't know some of these names. But he's doing the postering thing. So he's out there in Canada putting up flyers. Well, somebody answers. He goes, that person goes through the same thing I went through— email questions, panel interview, face-to-face in real life vetting with this member in Canada. So his real name is Patrick. So Patrick goes up to meet this guy face-to-face and do the face-to-face vetting. And he comes back and says he's good. So you get the notification in the base main chat group, hey everybody, welcome new member, blah blah blah. He went by Mark or something. It was about a week or two of just being in the main chat group, and then all of a sudden this Mark dude disappears, and an article drops in a big newspaper in Canada.

Mark was actually a journalist named Ryan Thorpe. Um, kudos to Ryan for exposing neo-Nazis. But that gum, bro, no coverage, no, no response team, no reaction task force, no QRT. You went out on your own and you went and met a white supremacist who's probably armed and you're just a journalist. Kudos. But please be careful, right? So he goes out, comes out with the article, doxxes, hey, this guy. Turns out that Pat I think it's their version of like our National Guard, but it was kind of like the Canadian Army. But he was a soldier in training. He gets booted from that. Royal RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, show up at Pat's house, take his guns. His parents hate him. He lost his job. And there's news footage of them showing up and trying to talk to him and stuff. and then all of a sudden he absconds. The last— nobody knows where he's gone, but his truck is found at the border of Canada and America. So we're like, well, we're pretty sure he's here. It's probably our group that's helping him. But from there, it's a potluck. You've got case teams now all over the United States.

We've got our world working partners as well. But now that I'm in the group, any given time, there might be 50 members, right? It fluctuates. And you would say, I would identify, oh, this is this person. Okay. Yeah, that's their picture. They're in Mobile, Alabama's territory. Well, now Mobile, Alabama has to open a domestic terrorism investigation against that guy. And then this guy and this guy and this guy. And at one point we had like with the case teams once a month, we had over 100 people on a, on a call. And every Monday, I think it was every Monday, I was on a call with all the case teams and their supervisors. Um, because this thing's happening fast-paced. So we had an unbelievable case agent out of Baltimore, and the AUSA that we worked with was phenomenal as well. And they get— they went after it like a good criminal case, which I was stoked about, because sometimes you don't see that on the national security side because they've never worked the criminal fast-paced side. And sometimes you don't realize thought there's all these avenues you can take in your investigation. But they were doing some phone crunching and analysis, and the— what they did to figure out— I mean, it was awesome.

Like, okay, we know he had this phone, but it stops here in Minnesota at a Walmart. That phone dies, but there were some new phone numbers cut on. I mean, it's just all this stuff. And we get a shot of what looks like Pat and the Maryland team leader can't go back former Army guy going through the Chesapeake Bay toll booth. And we're like, oh shit, that looks like them. So we're thinking, we just don't know where. And one day I go down to training in Rome and I pull up and I'm looking at the cars and I'm looking at the bodies under the awning because it's kind of sprinkling rain or whatever. And I'm like, okay, I don't see any new cars, but there's an extra body under that awning. And when I walked up, he was all bushy, bushy red beard and bushy hair by that point. But as soon as he started talking, it was Canadian accent. And, uh, and he goes, you might have heard of me, blah blah blah. And I was like, I just grabbed him and said, welcome to the United States, brother. So now we got him.

Well, now we know where he's at. He's not wandering. Here's the problem: he believes he's a ghost because he no longer lives, because he lost everything that was valuable to him. And some of the conversations we would have on rucks or just sitting under the awning drinking, just the four of us, pestilence TMB. Pat was now Punish Snake. Punish Snake and me, Pale Horse. I mean, it was for— I just want people to understand, because some people look and scoff at it and they're like, oh, it's so stupid. That's enough. These dudes were seriously talking about— Pat said on more than one occasion, when the boogaloo happens, When D-Day happens, if you're not fascist, that automatically makes you anti-fascist and the penalty is death. He would cry, but he would say, I'm going to give my dad the chance, but if my dad doesn't come to our side, I'm going to have to put a bullet in the back of his head.

Holy shit.

Now, he— and he said that more than once, and he would cry when he said it. Now, TMB, whose dad just went upstairs, who was down there having a few with us, TMB says, I could do it. He goes, but I would cry myself to sleep every day. He says, so I'd probably get somebody else to do it for me. And Pestilence, who at that point in time I thought, I mean, because he was messing with Order of Nine Angles and stuff like that, and some of his prayers when we would do our ritual ceremonies, some of his prayers were very dark. And like satanic and like melting flesh and stuff like that. Um, he actually said, you guys are way far ahead of me because there's no way I could kill my parents. I'm not that far along yet.

What kind of rituals?

So a lot of— okay, Hitler. Hitler loved a lot of Norse mythology. You would see like runes and you would see— now that doesn't mean that an Odinist is a white supremacist at all. But a lot, almost everybody— well, there's only one guy that I met that claimed to be Christian, not true Christ followers, white supremacist Christians. Everybody else claimed pagan. And I've got friends who are pagan, and that upsets them because they're actually very peaceful people. Asatru. You have different pantheons. So if you're in the Norse mythology pantheon, you're going to have Thor, you're going to have Freya, you're going to have Odin, things like that. There might be an Egyptian pantheon, it may have different, but generally I think in the pantheons that I've looked at, there's usually like a goddess of love and some, you know, you got like an Odin, god of thunder, Zeus, something. I don't know. I'm not a guru on it at all. But a lot of these white supremacists, because they're neo-Nazis, remember, they want everything Hitler. All of our camo, flecktarn. Because the flecktarn camo pattern is German. Uh, they drank a boatload of Jägermeister. Um, I mean, it's German, um, but that kind of thing.

Uh, so we've had blots, and the blot, B-L-O-T, is the ritual ceremony, um, for pagan. One of the ones we had, we actually had a guy who was in our group former National Guard as well, got booted because of his beliefs pretty much. He, he was, I think, an Asatru priest. So he led a blot and it was really more realistic, I felt like. But you're down there and we would do like they would, they would carve runes into a wood, but then they would put swastikas and stuff on it. We would cut ourselves and bleed on the wood and set it on fire and we would be praying to our gods until the fire burned out. Stuff like that. Mead. They had mead, drawing runes on your chest, having a worship ceremony. And then afterwards you might have a— is it this? They pronounced it shaman. I heard somebody say shumane the other day, but I'm not a guru. But you're going into the spirit world kind of thing. So when I'd heard pestilence pray at those—

you're doing this stuff?

Yeah, yeah, I did. Holy shit. Yeah, I prayed. I think I prayed to Rollo.

Yeah.

What is that? Ragnar's brother. Viking stuff.

Geez.

I mean, my whole arm is all— this is all Viking. But for me, I was doing all those undercovers. I always knew I wanted the armor of God and armor of God tattoos. I've always seen as either Knights of the Templar or like gladiator stuff. And I didn't want to do that, but I went— it's really Viking, but it's really armor of God. All the shield belt. Even my lightning is Psalm 23. And then once I retired, I went ahead and put Ephesians on my arm. But yeah, big Viking stuff. So I'm down there doing it with them and, you know, I told them, I'm like, hey man, I can't have fruit. So they looked up a way that where, okay, I have to be an evergreen, but I can do this and do this and sling the meat on you. And I'm like, yes, I'm in the woods in August sweating with my shirt off with white supremacists getting the holy shit, getting the paint stuff.

Are they sacrificing anything?

No, not yet. Not yet. So now I'm getting in tighter and some people are coming and some people are going. We've now found out where Pat's at, so we got him in place. But we're hearing these crazy things and sometimes you hear something and I'm like, I mean, when you're undercover, you got to be careful not to look suspicious. So how can I circle back to what was that you said, you know, kind of thing? And, uh, we were hearing some things, but we weren't sure. It wasn't enough to go charge anybody with anything, that's for sure. And right now we've got an undocumented alien in the United States. Now I've got him handling weapons, so that's another charge. But do we want to blow everything for just this, or are we getting in even more? And at one point they asked me, they go, do you think we have enough coverage? The teams and the management asked me, do you think we have enough coverage? Coverage just with you in there. I said, no. I said, as long as they're having direct messages between each other and I'm not a part of that, or we're not a part of that, we don't, we don't have full coverage.

It's just the facts. You think we got full coverage? I mean, you got access? No, I don't. No, they're, they're side messaging. I don't know this cell over here. I don't know this cell over here. Um, so now fast forward to Halloween of 2019 as I take a sip of this caffeinated— not caffeinated, yeah, caffeinated beverage. I was thinking carbonated. Plugging somebody, trying to make money. Um, so fast forward, Halloween of 2019, we're having what is commonly referred as a hate camp. There's probably 12 or 13 dudes coming from all over the United States the people from overseas, for whatever visa, passport reasons, whatever, they couldn't make it. Um, so we're down in Georgia on the 100 Acres, and we're there, all of us, for a good 3 or 4 days, I think. So Halloween evening, it was weird because it had been like— it hadn't been cold that year yet, but that's the night the cold front blew in, and it dropped to like— it went from like 60 to 20. So I'm not a former Navy SEAL. That was a little fast for me to, to acclimate. I even went to Walmart and bought some base layers.

I'm like, I did not know it was going to get this cold. So we do— I do hand-to-hand combat. That's the thing I brought to the table. But, you know, when the lawyers at headquarters are like, what, you're teaching them? I'm like, no, I'm not doing the Patrick Swayze rip the throat out thing. I'm not teaching them how to do that. Because it's real, man. The real Roadhouse. But, uh, I said, I'm just going to do some ground escapes, you know, somebody's in a full mount or you're in full guard, whatever. And, uh, we did that, we did some carbine training, and then that cold front blew in. And we're out there and we're just messing around, got tents set up, fire going, and I go to charge my phone. And you know how it is when you're frozen and you hop in that warm truck and start kind of— after you, after I had a like one or two too, you know. You get in there, you get that toasty and kind of nod off a little bit. So I nodded off and I woke up to my door beating. Pale Horse! Pale Horse!

You got to wake up! You gotta wake up! You can't— you ain't gonna believe this! You ain't gonna believe this! I'm like, what the hell? Jump up like, what? And they go, you come out here, you got to see this. I'm like, yeah. They go, you remember us talking about a sacrifice? I go, kinda. I mean, I vaguely remember something about— we got a goat. And I'm like, what? They had gone— I'm back, probably not even a mile down the road. You pass it coming into the property. Dude's got 3 goats. They went out there in their flecktarn with the balaclavas, which was their look. When I got introduced— when I got introduced or accepted into the base, I was issued my balaclava and I was issued, uh, uh, the base patch, which was 3 eyewise runes, which signifies, uh, birth Death, rebirth. So the three, three rooms. So they go out there with their balaclavas, all flecktarn camoed out, ARs, AK-47s, jump in this dude's backyard, and he heard them, or they started making noise. Everybody beds down. This dude comes out with a flashlight. I'm like, it's a wonder nobody got killed, you know.

So they steal this goat or ram, I don't know the difference, it was a big goat. With horns. And I get out and one of the, one of the other dudes in the group whose moniker was Dima, he says, man, this goat's shitting all over the bed of the truck. Can't Go Back had a Chevy Colorado SR2 or ZR2. SR anyway, nice truck. Had all kinds of stuff to it. Small block diesel, I think. Either way. It's crapping all over the bed of the truck. And I go, well, I'd be crapping all over the place too if a bunch of Neanderthals in flecktarn just jerked me out of my backyard, you know? So I see Eisen. Eisen is a member, and he's the one that's going to be— he's going to lead the block tonight on Halloween night. And he, he's over there loving on the goat, talking to it. And I'm like, wow, this is weird. I walk over and I go, hey, is it bad that I feel sorry for the goat? He said, don't let the goat hear you say that. He goes, his name's Gar. He named him Gar because his middle name is Garfield, named after his grandfather Garfield, who my understanding was also a white supremacist.

So now the goat's name is Gar. And he says, listen, we don't need any negative vibes. This goat needs to know it's going to Valhalla. We're going to sacrifice this goat. It's going to Odin tonight. This is a good thing. And, uh, and we don't need any negativity. You know, we don't need the other guys hearing thoughts like that. And I said, okay, man, I'm just gonna take that baseball and push it down and never let it back up, you know. And, uh, I go over because we're getting ready, and the rules were, hey, no weapons down at the holy spot. Um, so we bench everything, and I go to my truck and I go into my listening device because if I'm out, there's a cover team out. You might not be right around the corner But I'm covered until I go to bed. But because I was staying on that property all days, I had 24-hour coverage. They were running shifts, you know, somewhere down the road, maybe an abandoned place with a generator in it, whatever. I don't know. But they're all set up and monitoring. And I go to my listening device and I go, hey, I'm pretty sure we're getting ready to go down here and kill this goat.

And I'm like, I'm racking my brain trying to think of anything Should I stop this? Should I not stop this? But I'm giving you guys the opportunity. If you can come up with a reason for me not doing it, or you don't want me doing it, you need to let me know. And I stared at my device and I waited and I waited and I waited, and I didn't hear anything. And I went— I leaned into the device and I said, well, I guess we're going down here to do a sacrifice. So we go down in the woods, decent little walk. Scary, scary. The first time I did it, I mean, first time walking down there, I'm like, am I actually getting butterflies right now, man? I'm like, if demons start flying, I don't know, I'm still trying to kill everything. Um, but we walk down and we get to the holy spot and we all get in a circle.

A lot of people want to talk about tradecraft. How to hide, how to conceal yourself, how to escape, how to evade. But here's the thing, the true professional, that's not the guy that's always on the run. It's the guy who never shows up on the map to begin with. Which brings me to my next point. Your phone is talking. It's talking through apps you may or may not use. A lot of them you probably never use. Talking to servers that you've never even heard of that are telling them where you've been, where you are, what you buy. And all kinds of other information that you don't want out. And that's where Glacier comes in with SecureDNS. You hit a button, close the app, you never have to open it ever again. That's concealment. Spent a long time building this app. Almost a year. It's the perfect app to conceal yourself. You can get it on the Apple App Store, or you can go to theglacierapp.com. Remember, privacy isn't paranoia, it's protection. The Glacier App. What's the Holy Spot?

It's just a patch of the land down there where— that's where we would go do our rituals. I mean, like tiki torches set up, a little square area. They may even draw like a whatever, but that's where we would hold our blots. And he just started— Luke TMB just started referring to it as the Holy Spot, or maybe we all did, because that's where we're going to do our rituals. And again, it's not true pagan. They're twisting it to their white supremacy beliefs, just like Christian Identity was twisted by neo-Nazis. They call it Christian Identity. It's taking the Bible and twisting it to white supremacy, which is not the Bible and not Christian. So we get down there, we're all in a circle around the goat. Somehow I ended up at the back of the goat and Eisen's doing the spiel. He's doing the block. And he's saying that on this sacrifice, we're going to start the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt in Norse mythology is essentially Odin and a bunch of other gods going out in the middle of the night and laying the smackdown to all their enemies. The white supremacy version is this sacrifice is going to signify the beginning of the Wild Hunt, and that's us cleansing the world of darkness, i.e., non-whites, anti-fascists.

So he does the block and he comes over to sacrifice the goat and he's got— it's bigger than a machete. It wasn't a sword. I mean, if I went back and looked at it, maybe it is a machete, but it was something that looked bigger than a machete to me. Big blade, though. And he's a stocky kid and I'm holding the goat and he's in and he's— he's practicing. He's like, when somebody— people are getting impatient, somebody's like, just do it. I said, wait a minute, to make a couple of practice swings. Just do it, man. He rears back with all his might. He comes down, wham! And I'm holding this goat. He hits it right on the back of the neck. And I guess picturing the head was going to chop off or something. It goes thunk. And all you hear is baa. And I went, oh, I don't think it broke a hair. I don't know if the blade was dull or if the backstrap of the goat is so thick, but in that split second in my mind, I'm like, oh, this is going to get bloody, man. This is going to be— I'm just picturing something nasty happen.

And then somebody's like, do it again, it's going to take two swings. And then somebody says, does anybody got it? I think Pestilence says, does anybody have a pistol? Well, remember, nobody's supposed to bring a weapon down there. Zoom Nat says, I got one. To which me and TMB— I didn't mention this— TMB ran a tight range too. I was happy with how safe him and Pestilence were running firearms training. It made me feel safer, you know. TMB and I both were like, what? The one dude who shouldn't have a weapon, the most uncoordinated, unsafe, who had been up for over 48 hours straight. I think he worked third shift in Austin, Texas, and drove on Adderall nonstop all the way to Rome, Georgia. And here we are, night one. He goes, I got mine. Luke takes it from him. He hands it to Eisen. We're all still in the circle on our knees. Eisen chambers around. Starts to point towards the goat and then turns away with his finger on the trigger. And that's when the instructor in me came out. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He goes, what? Good man, look at what you're shooting at.

We're on a daggum circle. What are you doing? So he's like, he looks, boom, goat drops. Minutes go by, you hear stuff like, yeah man, you know, going to Valhalla, whatever man, F your Jewish God, all this stuff. White power. And, uh, it's still kicking, still kicking. And I go over to Eisen, I said, why don't you put another round in it? He goes, I think it's dead. I said, yeah, but I mean, you know, for the love of the goat and all, we want it arriving in Valhalla happy, right? Not twitching. Yeah, yeah, boom. This— and you hear somebody say, oh, it's definitely dead now. So I think I'm done. No, we're not done. Now they take a knife and cut the throat of the goat, gar. They fill this cup up with all his blood, and Eisen has brought acid. So now everybody's still in the circle, but I got a flashlight and I'm shining it for— I'm shining it for Eisen, and he's tearing the tab off. Not everybody did acid. I didn't, of course. But, uh, he's tabbing, and then they chase it with the blood. Tab it, chase it with the blood.

And we're going around the circle and And I remember Luke TMB getting kind of nervous because he's like, he's already taken the tab and chased it with the blood. And he's like, he goes, hey, I had a couple of beers before this. I've never done this before. Is it okay if you have beer? What happens if you have beer? He's just going nuts. What happens if you have beer and you haven't done it? I look at it, I go, it's a little late. You're on it now. Just go for the ride. Yeah. The questions you should ask before. So we get around, we're getting towards the end of the circle. And Big C starts puking and I'm like, okay. And it gets to me. I think I'm the last one. I can't remember if Eisen had done it yet. I'm either last or Eisen's last, but it gets to me and I look down on the cup and it's already coagulating. It's just chunky, clotty, big. Then I'm like, oh God, I want to turn that up. I want to do it. I'm like, I'm going to puke. I don't want to do it. And I think Pestilence gave me an out.

But either way, I just took two fingers and went deep into the blood, pulled them out, sucked all the blood off. And I think I brought up— yeah, I carried a beer down there, luckily. So I chased it down with a beer. But then they start commencing to cut the animal all to pieces, throw its stomach sack and intestines into the creek. What the fuck? Carried the head of GAR around. There's pictures everywhere. Like, it turns out that there was another infiltrator in the base. Not law enforcement, though. They had infiltrated just before me. But it made sense once it came out because I'm like, how the hell do they get in these pictures, man? Because like, literally, we would do a training Halloween and then like the next week, BBC and The Guardian overseas, they got me sitting right there doing a sig heil, holding a machine gun. Us holding the head of the goat with the flag and everybody doing a sig heil or weapons video.

You?

Yeah. Yeah. But we're all wearing balaclavas and then we black out our face because they're huge on anonymity because they don't want to get doxxed. So before a photo, before a photo shoot, which is really what it is, it might be like, hey, Pale Horse, man, you can see your tats. I'm like, shit, the shirt's too short. I went over, I cut black socks and made like sweatbands so I can cover that. If Pestilence's hair was sticking out, I'd be like, hey, your ponytail's hanging out, man. Because they didn't want to be doxxed. We want to be anonymity. So then the next day of training is fubar, screwed, because they are all— I mean, maybe like 3 people didn't do acid. Everybody's up high all night. I did have fun messing with them with the head guard when they were all high and stuff because I was bored. But, you know, I'm like, I'm like, why did you do this? I'm leaving the face in there like Shit, you know. But, uh, so the next day shot. Now Saturday comes. Now we're back. Now we're training. Uh, they pull out the wand, they line everybody up, pull the wand out that they used on me to wand everybody.

They're going through people's tents and I'm thinking to myself, man, what if one of these dudes has something? Because they're holding us at gunpoint going through it. I'm fine. I walked right up, I'm like, you do me first, man. Here. And they patted me down. But on that search, Luke's walking up and down the line with this, with the revolver in his hand, ready to go. Punish Snake standing on a little hump, maybe like to the corner of your room here, on a hump with the, with the AR. And it's like, if you run, you're going to get shot. You know, it was a nervous moment for a lot of people. And I was nervous because I'm like, what if one of these dudes has something in their truck or in their tent and these guys want to kill somebody? How am I going to deal with that? Do I sit there and watch somebody die? I know, but can I effectively engage at this point? I don't know. These things that just run through your head. So we finished that, we did a lot more training, a lot more firearms, and that night we go down back to the holy spot, a tiki torch walk.

Um, it's all in a— it's all in a video that released for propaganda. But we go down that night and start a bonfire, and we burn American flag, and we burn Holy Bibles. And, and there, while they're screaming, "F your Jewish God," "Death to America," "F Jesus." How are you dealing with this as a Christian? Yes, uh, tough.

I mean, all of it?

Yeah, tough. Yeah, that was a little dark.

How do you, how do you, I mean, how do you What is that going through your head at all?

Yeah. Yeah. And after, after this weekend, I did, I did text my pastor. I'm like, I know it's hard for grown men to reach out for help sometimes. I go, but I can use some prayers because I just did some stuff in the last couple of days and I just don't feel right, you know?

Yeah.

But let me tell you what happened. We're burning. The ZoomNet kid almost fell in the fire trying to burn the American flag. I grabbed the other side. Hindsight, I probably should have let him go, you know.

Not a bad idea.

Look at that, white supremacist on fire. He's on fire for Jesus. But I did that. And then I'm watching them put the Bibles in, Holy Bibles, face for opening up, face, open the face up and putting it face down in the fire. So the fire starts building up and eventually it starts dying down. And Punish Snake, he's just stoking the coals. He's just stoking the coals. Well, as he's stoking the coals, you know how you can see, like, if you look at a magazine or something or a book that's been burnt in the fire, you see like the little frayed edges, you can see the sheets kind of. Well, he's stoking the coals and stoking the coals and boom, a Bible opens up. Face open, not a page burned in it.

No kidding.

No. And it's like, what? They're like, no, I saw— I saw you put that thing face first. Like, I'm pretty sure I saw that. Well, the propaganda video shows it going down on the fire. I got a picture. It's in the book. If you blow it up, that was taken because they were taking pictures. I took pictures that later on I was just going through pictures and I blew it up. When you blow it up, you can clearly see Holy Bible in the middle of to the fire. And he starts tearing page by page, gets this thing going. And now the fire's going again and we're out there, hate, hate, hate, spew hate, hate, hate, hate, white power, all this stuff, Sieg Heil. And fire starts dying down again and he starts stoking the coals again. And as he's stoking them, he flips. And I'll be damned if the second Bible— I probably shouldn't say damned in the But I'll be damned, he flips the Bible and it opens up, not a page burnt. To the point to where one of the members of the base goes, man, these effing Bibles just won't burn. Now, inside, I didn't do it outside, but in my head I was like, little Sammy Sosa up there, I'm picking up what you're putting down.

You know, I've heard people argue, well, some Bible pages are made out of clay and they won't burn. And I'm like, bro, whatever. I mean, I watched the flag burn. I watched all kinds of stuff burn. It didn't burn. I wish I could have seen what it opened to, like what book. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah, what book? That'd be nice if I could blow one up. I never found a picture where I could like see and blow it up. But yeah, that was pretty amazing. But so at the end of that night, it's now Saturday night. Everybody's winding down. Some people are leaving because they got long drives back, but I'd gained enough trust with Pestilence and TMB, and I circled back on something that we had talked about. Of course, I knew what I was trying to find out because the case team knew as well. It's something we heard and we weren't sure what they meant. Circle back on it when it's not, not going to look suspicious. And I said, hey man, remember that night we were talking about blah blah blah? And however I worded it They're like, yeah, we'll tell you.

Let's put the phone on airplane mode. Well, how about this time nobody's checking it? I go, yeah, it's on airplane mode. I only put it on airplane mode. If they go over and check it later, I'll be like, oh, I'm an idiot, I thought I put it on airplane mode. If you're not going to check it, I'm not going to do it. But they were talking and they said that they were planning some things, like they have a list they're forming, but nobody said we're going to hurt anybody. And I'm like, okay. But I do remember Pestilence looking at TMB and TMB kind of leaning in and whispering to Pestilence and them saying, yeah, I think we can trust Pale Horse. And then now, now things are going. So after Halloween camp, Punished Snake goes back to the Maryland-Delaware area with Can't Go Back. So now it's just back to our normal group, the four of us in the Georgia cell. There was a guy named Helter Skelter in there. Who claimed that he was the perfect, basically, white supremacist in hiding because he was an IT specialist, had a 9-to-5 job, and had a girlfriend.

According to him, he was off the grid as far as being on anybody's radar. But for 2 years, he'd been wanting to kill somebody in an attack.

For 2 years, he's been wanting to kill somebody?

Yeah, wanting. Been preparing for this for 2 years. So we get a DM. Just within the Rome, Georgia group. And in that DM is telling us, hey, we're going on a camping trip, bring blah, blah, blah. Everything read exactly like we were going to be going out putting up posters, except he said something to the effect of, but bring your weapons. And we're like, what the hell? Why would I be bringing my weapons if we're going out? But why did he say that? And, you know, I would like to find out. The case teams would like to find out before I walk in there on a night and then find out something bad's going to happen. So I called Luke at the nudging of the case team in Atlanta. I called Luke on wire, and I'm talking, I'm trying to find out what's going on, and he's just giggling. And I'm like, listen, man, you know, I've— I haven't told you everything I've done. You don't need to know what I've done, but what are we planning on doing? Is this something I'd want to drive a different vehicle to? Like, is this something I don't want my plates being seen?

You know what I mean? Something that doesn't come back to me. And he just giggled. I couldn't get nothing out of him. So that's Monday night. So Thursday I call back doing the same thing. He's still giggling. And I'm like, bro, it's about to be D-Day, crunch time. Not D-Day the way I've been mentioning it. Like, we're about to be this date that he's saying we're going on a camping trip. And somewhere in the conversation he says, oh, I'll tell you face to face. He goes, I'll tell you, I'm just not going to talk about it over a phone. And I go, oh, how's tomorrow? Because I'm driving through there. I wasn't, but I am now. I get off the phone with him, I call the case team. I said, you guys ready for tomorrow? Let's go. So I drive over and it's afternoon and, you know, I wake him up at the crack of 2 in the afternoon and he comes down and I'm like, hey, I said, morning, sunshine. Sorry to wake you from your beauty nap or whatever. So we put our phones on airplane mode, stick them in the cooler. He's got like a little— not a Faraday bag, but he's got something like plastic he puts them in.

I don't know if he thinks that does something, or maybe it did. We walk over to the edge of the barn and I said, listen, you know I'm a jokester and you know I love to have fun, but when it's time to do business, I'm serious. So what are we doing? And he says, essentially, we're going to whack some people. Kill somebody. And I said, well, that's way different than putting up flyers, and it's definitely nothing I would want to drive my personal vehicle to, man. What in the hell? So he starts talking and telling me that him and Pestilence have already identified several people, um, but this was a, a couple that they believed to be active in the Atlanta Antifa, Antifa, anti-fascist group, um, and they wanted to murder them. And when I started looking at his plan, and now I'm trying to slow him down, now it's like, okay, like a murder for hire. If a murder for hire, somebody comes and hires me, number one, I don't want them leaving without me getting the ticket. I want to make sure that I'm the guy that you want because I don't need you leaving our meeting and going soliciting other people to murder somebody, you know.

I want to make sure I'm the guy. So now I've got him and he's explaining things to me, and man, compared to the operational security that he put into writing the rules for your, your, your bug-out bag or the rules for putting up flyering. I'm like, this is just so haste and not operationally secure at all. So I started trying to let him tell me what the plan was, and then I pointed out to him, bro, why you hadn't even been by the place? No. And I'm like, and we're planning on doing this, what, in 2 days? He's like, yeah. And I go, I go, why the haste, man? Look at how thorough you was on this stuff. And he was like, or were on this stuff. And he's like, I'm just tired of waiting. And then I remembered, just like I was on the Outlaws case, I was a site survey specialist. And I said, let me do my work. I said, I'm down here anyway. I said, this is what I do. I pull, I mean, I'm pulling residential, I'm pulling schools, I'm pulling ethnicity, I'm pulling crime rates, I'm pulling income. I'm pulling all kinds of stuff.

I said, this is what I do when I'm doing a site survey. I said, I can do all that and get everything we need about that house, and it'd be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I said, because it's just going to look like I'm doing my job. And he's like, man, I like that, man, I like that. He even was so— he wouldn't write anything down. He tore me off a piece of paper, so no indentions, and he showed me the phone. It wouldn't even say it. He wanted me to write it the address and the people's names. So I did that. I started doing research. Helter Skelter had to get a back surgery, so just to, just to shave the disc. So now we're gathering over at Ax and further and stuff. Uh, Luke has gone— by the time we finished the plan, um, originally he just wanted me driving, but somewhere in there he's doing all this research. I'm talking about like, uh, catch bags. Bought 4 catch bags to go on our ARs. If we have to shoot them, the brass won't fall. Nothing for cops, right? Revolvers, brass doesn't drop.

Nothing for the cops. Uh, made a silencer for— I'm pretty sure it was a .25. It wasn't a 20. I'm pretty sure it was a .25 semi-auto. Uh, made a silencer for it. That's going to be the headshot gun. Um, we canvassed the house 3 different times. I did it once with Luke. It was me, Luke, and Pestilence that did it. And then me, Luke, and Helter Skelter went back one night and did it. You're hearing things like Helter Skelter saying, hey, somebody asked, hey, are there any kids in the house? Helter says, I have no problem shooting a commie kid. Yeah, you're riding out there with Helter, and it was either Helter or Luke says, hey, I think Helter wants to pop his cherry on this one. And I'm driving and I'm like, what? Pop your cherry? I'm like, what are you talking about? I think that means two different things to us. They said, no, he actually wants to put a bullet in one of them's head. And I said, okay. I said, what's that, .25, right? I'm like, yeah, this is probably going to take more than one shot. I think that's doable.

So by the time everything finished, Luke had done research and the idea was this: we were going to meet at a camping site. We were going to leave all of our electronics, everything there, phone, watches, whatever. Nothing electronic goes with you. Stays at the campsite. We're going to go to a pay-by-the-hour motel. We're going to get in there, we're all going to shower, we're going to take a loofah, we're going to scrub— this is all his advice, this is all his research— scrub any dead skin flakes off. We're going to do like hazmat, we're going to take our pants and we're going to blouse them or put them over our boots and tape them. We're going to tape our gloves to our, uh, shirts. Um, he even said the Vaseline facial hair so you don't drop any hair. He had done enough research to where he had read that a lot of people who murder somebody for the first time lose control of their bowels. So he suggested we all wear Depends in case we lose control of our bowels when we kill these people.

Holy shit.

Now you're going to hear counterarguments that said, oh, Scott came up with that plan. I was just as shocked as everybody else was when I'm hearing this. I'm like, I didn't come up with that that shit. So when he said the defense part though, I looked at him, I said, I think I'll be all right. I didn't say I killed anybody. I said, I think I'll be all right. I don't need any diapers. He took that as I probably killed somebody. So he bumped me up on the list from driving to— it was going to be, once we were ready, we were going to go, we were going to have a pick lock. If it didn't work, we're going to kick the door in. There was a bay window that protruded from the house a little bit, but it was a great spot to do overwatch. And Helter was going to post there. Me and Luke, this is the way I was told, we're going to go down, we're going to shoot the parents. If there's anything else, we're going to do whatever. But of course Helter wants a shot now too. And then, and then Pasquilus was going to set the place on fire once we, once we were done.

And what I learned is that he was also creating a list, uh, and it had journalists, left, left journalists, um, TV anchors. And I'm like, so you legitimately want to keep killing people and we're going to start taking out people who are kind of famous? He said, yeah. And I said, well, it's a good thing we're doing this family first. It'll be a nice, you know, warm-up, if you will. So while all that's going on, you've got other cells being created, like in Michigan, and they're going out and doing stuff now. They're doing propaganda videos and they're putting up flyers and they're talking crazy shit. And we might be on a wire call together. If we wouldn't have taken the case down of the base when we did that, the week we did it, that weekend I was going to be in Michigan training with those guys in Bad Ax, Michigan. So And again, the recruitment videos are getting better and better, better and better. That was another rule. Every, every new video had to be way better than the last one. They did one and it's got Congress. It's got scenes from congressional hearings and they're talking about the base.

They're talking about Pat being absconded illegally in the United States and we don't know where he's at kind of thing. But Pat and Can't Go Back and Eisen and the group up there, everybody was looking 2020 COVID year, even though COVID was already here. They were calling it Flu A and B, whatever. But January of 2020 was going to be a gun rights rally in Virginia. At that time, the governor was a Democrat and was pretty strict on gun policy. So there's going to be a Second Amendment gun rights rally. So a lot of base members are like, what if that's the kickoff to the boogaloo? Again, boogaloo being D-Day, and now we can just clean house. What if that's the kickoff to the boogaloo? and they had been planning on initiating. So the things we were picking up, we the FBI, they did that Baltimore crew I told you about. It's unbelievable. They did a wiretap. They tapped into the apartment of Can't Go Back and Punish Snake. If I thought they talked crazy around me when we've been sitting talking crazy stuff, the stuff they spewed by themselves in that apartment. Holy cow.

I'm talking like that old '80s movie, The Boys Next Door, thing, man. It's like just violent. They were talking about breaking out the saints. So in case you don't know, these accelerationists, they refer to your white supremacy mass shooters as saints. I'm not going to say their name on your show because this is something we're doing in the tactical world now. It says don't name them. So the Charleston shooter, I'm not going to say his name. He doesn't need any more fame. I'll name every victim. I'm not going to name that even though it wasn't white supremacy. I'm not going to name the Columbine kids' names. I'll name the victims. I'm not going to name the Tree of Life shooter. I'm not going to name the Christchurch shooter, the Norway shooter. But they have shown— they literally have. And maybe I can send it to you if you want, and you can post it when you put this out there. It is a— it's a leaderboard. And it's the Saints, and it's got, it's got the Norway shooter at number 1, 77-0. It's got the Christchurch shooter at like 55-0, and it goes down. You got the Charleston shooter at 9-0, and it says, Saint, Saint, Saint, the Saint leaderboard.

What are you going to do? What are you going to do to make the board? Kind of thing. So we get them talking about breaking the Saints out, as insane as it is. They're like, okay, Charleston Shooters and Terre Haute, Indiana, let's pull it up. They're pulling up the prison system and looking and going, okay, but what if we rolled it? How awesome would it be if the Boogaloo hits and we roll in and break out a saint? How awesome is the base going to be? And I told you, they're talking about shooting cops. They're talking about— I mean, they're just very, very dark stuff, man. Coal burner, that means a white woman that's been with a non-white dude. And he's like, I'll take that coal burner, put her— I can't wait to put her up on the wall and drive a gun into her mouth and blow her head off. Crazy shit like that. Um, holy shit. But their plan was, is to go to the rally because you're going to have most likely anti-government, you're going to have some 3%ers, which is not illegal, but you're going to have anti-government militia type stuff, you're going to have Antifa, you're going to have cops.

What if you pop a round off and nobody knows who's shooting at who, and then all of a sudden everybody starts shooting each other? What's that? What if that's the kickoff to the boogaloo? Again, not a lot of forethought or afterthought, but I will tell you that in the base, ethnostates wasn't like the entire state, but my crew, my crew and the sales of Maryland, Delaware, and North Georgia, we were looking at property in the Appalachian Mountains to buy, to create our own compound. The Detroit and North Midwest, they were looking in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They had already found some property. They had converted a former chief of police who was no longer chief of police because of his conflict of interest in his belief system. But they had recruited one of the base members' moms who's a nurse, and they're talking about, well, this will be— I know it may sound crazy, but they're planning it and they're talking, well, this nurse, she's a nurse, she can help birth the kids and this, that, and the other crazy stuff. Nazaro had property in Pacific Northwest. So, so we rolling into that, and now we're on this timeline, we're on this clock that's ticking, and can, can, can the stars align and us take this thing down right without people getting hurt?

We're hoping so. We're betting on it. And that last week, actually the week we were supposed to take it down, my back started spasming so bad I couldn't get out of the floor. And I'm like, if it was an extremity, a leg, arm, neck, chest, I could, I could deal with it. I can't sit, so I can't even get on a plane. I went and went to my physical therapist. He gave me some exercises to do, and I went electric stim 24/7 because apparently the pathway pain signal has to go through is the same pathway that the electricity uses. That's why the electric stim can kind of block that signal. I'll tell you what I found out. I thought it was a disc above my fusion. What I found out in January after we took the case down is my original lumbar fusion in 2002 had broke. Yeah, they broke around, they said probably around 2005. So I'd had a disconnected back, broke back for 15, approximate 15 years. So we had to postpone it a week. So I jump, I jump on a plane, I go to Baltimore, I meet the Baltimore team. Go over some stuff, drive to Delaware the next morning.

I'm sighting in, helping sight in the 6.5 Creedmoor, poorly, by the way, and sight in a Ghost AR that they had built for Punished Snake, who's an undocumented alien inside the United States. Actually, they messed up when they made it. It was doing a double fire. They went to the range and was going, and they were like, Went back and fixed it so it wouldn't draw attention. So I'm there with them all day and I'm trying to get the final stuff that the case team needs. And I end up with them that night. We had a few drinks, got something to eat, and it's just— it was, for me, divine intervention is what I call it. But it ebbed and flowed perfect. Like, I knew that the case team needed this, a certain question answered, and the conversation would just present itself. And I'd go, oh yeah, speaking of that, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah, boom, boom, boom, got that. Got the next one, got the next one. At one point, I'm pretty sure I found the hole where the camera was because I knew the camera shot, you know, because I'd seen some of the video that they had gotten from the Title III wiretap.

But I'm sitting at the table and it's— I'm pretty sure it's me here. Can't go back there. Punish Snake here. But I'm staring at the wall and I think I finally find it. And when I got everything that they needed, I'd been in the floor stretching, you know, back and all this stuff. When I got everything, I kind of looked right at what I thought— I'm pretty sure it was— I looked at it and I winked. I took a drink and I winked because I know they were watching from the other side like, we got everything. So I go from there, I drive back to Baltimore, get up the next day, flight super delayed, fly to Atlanta, get to Atlanta, rental car is gone. They take me to one office, they carry me to Uber. I take an Uber to an Enterprise facility that's open. That's where they told me to go. I go, Uber drives off, I'm in the parking lot, the lights go off. I'm like, son of a— So I had to go back, find a car, drove up to Atlanta, and that's when Helter Skelter went with us that night and told us, you know, he wanted to pop his cherry.

No problem killing commie kids. He had built the silencer, he had ordered the catch bags, and did that. I think I went home, but the next day I was back because I'm meeting with the local SWAT teams on the takedown stuff. So the way it worked is that Wednesday we started the arrest. I went on a ruse because it's 100-acre land and it's not really an easy way to sneak up there. We just did a ruse where I took, I took Luke to lunch. We figured that was the most disadvantageous place to hit out of all the places we were hitting. So I said I was going to pick him up for lunch, and I'd already laid out this thing where we don't need to be riding around with guns on us because if we get stopped and that's fresh in their minds when we get ready to do this thing, they're like, that's a great idea. So I made sure we had no weapons. And as we're driving out, I went to a predetermined spot that the SWAT team had picked, and I faked that the truck messed up. And I was like, man, if that damn caliber froze again— because I really did have one— I said, hang on, I pull over.

I pull up kind of next to a fence where you can't really open the door. I get out, I walk around back like I'm looking. The truck pulls up. It's actually an FBI agent, but it's a ruse. And he says, hey man, you need any help? And I look up and I go, holy shit, I didn't know you lived— where do you live here? Like I knew him, man. Where have you been? I ain't seen you in forever. Holy shit, man, what's going on? He goes, man, that is a— I'm walking away. That is a nice truck. While I'm doing that, Luke's looking at us, but the Bearcat, uh, vehicle is coming over the hill with a SWAT team. So it was arrest without any incident. I jumped in the back of the truck, said, go, go, go. They're on him, on top of him. He put his hands up. No tear gas in the truck, you know, that stuff. Take him off, and then they go and arrest Pestilence at his house, and they pick Helter Skelter up leaving work. We keep it very quiet because Thursday morning, early morning AM, the Washington field office SWAT team hit Eisen's place.

The Baltimore SWAT team hit Can't Go Back and and punish Snake. And then from there, now starting to unravel. So Friday, I'm in the main group and I'm here and I'm watching the chatter. What is this? You see, we've got members arrested, blah, blah, blah. Now the affidavits coming out through the day and it's like, man, it says there's a fed in here. It says that an FBI undercover has infiltrated this group. And they're like, who's a fed? And you see it going and going and going. And about 5 o'clock on Friday, Roman comes on and says something to the effect of, I don't think we could have done anything to figure him out or out him because he's one of our best members. As soon as he starts saying that and typing, I'm like, oh, he knows it's me now. He's going back and he's like, okay, who came in in July or whatever? And he's looking, probably listening to the recordings. And then it says, as soon as he typed that, I go, ah, he knows it's me now. And it says, you've been removed by Roman Wolf, or Roman Wolf has removed you.

I screenshotted it. I sent it to all the case teams and said, and I'm out. But like I told you, there was another infiltrator. The coverage after, we saw that there was still chatter in the room, and it was like, man, you mean Pale Horse is the Fed? And then one guy's like, there's no way. That's one of the most solid neo-Nazis I've met. And then another one was like, is that the dude with the deep voice on the call? And they're like, yeah, because man, there was something really endearing about him. So I'm like, they really do like me, you know? But yeah, we arrested those. We picked up some more on animal cruelty stuff. We picked up some more on tagging the synagogue and didn't get Nazaro. I'm sure he's still on the no-fly list. I mean, he's got to be. But that was that case, man. Yeah, that was that case. Like I said, after that Halloween weekend, That's dark shit. I would come back to people and I'd go, I'd go, man, I've been working undercover off and on since 1996. I said, I have never been with a group of people where I had to burn holy Bibles, burn an American flag, and I damn sure wasn't with a group of people that went and stole a goat, sacrificed it at a ritual, and drank his blood.

And I said, I've done all that in like 3 days with these people. Um, we got to find something. But yeah, it's, uh, It was, it was good. And eventually, after the aftermath, they— the UK arrested a 13-year-old kid for— they have a domestic terrorism statute, and it was a member of the base. And, uh, yeah, it was like the youngest arrest, 13 years old, I think, the youngest arrest they've ever done over there.

Oh my gosh.

so it's now February 2020. I'm in Arizona and I'm putting on training for online covert employees that are going to be working domestic terrorism type stuff. They can't do face-to-face meets, but they can go in type of way. And I'd always heard that when it's time for you to retire, you'll know. I never really knew what that meant. I mean, obviously I can picture what it means, but I never How would that feel? Because our cutoff age at the FBI is 57, and I saw myself working the 57 and then trying to extend maybe a year or two on a specialty. Like, if I'm the undercover coordinator for the state of Tennessee, maybe there's an argument to be made. Now let's keep him another year till we train somebody up. That was my plan. But I'm sitting there, and it was my birthday, February 13th. and we were out, and, uh, my cohorts that were helping put on the training as well, we all went out. And I remember sitting there in the restaurant, and I don't know what the conversation was or what I was thinking, but it was like a brick in the face, man.

Bam! Hit me. And just this thought came across my mind that I'm satisfied with my career. And that doesn't— I'm not saying I've done it all and I'm the B.O., none of that. I'm just saying I'm satisfied. And I never said And then the COVID they wouldn't let you go to work. I'm like, what do you mean I can't go to work? So I was forced to sit at home, which is something I would never do. So it gave me an idea and a picture of what retirement might look like, sitting at the house, making exactly what I'm making now, because you got a Thrift Savings Plan and you got a pension. And I punched out at 50. I retired. I retired June 30th, 2021.

Damn, dude, that's a hell of a career.

Yeah, and I may bond back in. We'll see. Not FBI. I won't go fed, but I may bond back in, even if it's just to help with training or something. I got a buddy, he's going to be the next sheriff. Yeah, so we'll see. But, and I've done some stuff. I've been on movie sets. I've actually been the armorer on a set. Um, I was on set security. I actually helped with the weapons, making them for the movie. And, uh, I did a cameo. I got my first kill. Okay, I've got one shotgun pistol grip shotgun kill to the back from somebody looting my gun store, and he dies right next to my motorcycle.

Wow.

And it hit number— it actually hit number 2 on, uh, dramas on Amazon or Prime. Yeah, Amazon Prime. Yeah, pretty good. Pretty funny to see the weapons and you're like, hey, but that was before Rust.

And I mean, how, uh, how prominent is this, the base, the 764 stuff? It's getting bigger, is it shrinking?

You know, I think You're always going to see people moving around. Some of these groups aren't big. Am I going to tell you, like, I've read it, I think it was my article, there's a million neo-Nazis, there's a million white supremacists, and they're all going to be on your doorstep tomorrow? No, I'm not saying that. Am I saying that it's the most dangerous threat in domestic terrorism? I mean, I'll say it's up there, but I didn't ever work Antifa or an anti-government separatist group, you know, that that I don't know. I don't know if it's the biggest threat, but from when I was working it, yeah, I thought, I thought it was. But as far as size and growth, I'm not going to say it's huge, huge. But sometimes you'll see the names and it might be— I mean, let's say it's me, Pale Horse, and all of a sudden I pop up in a new white supremacist Telegram group or something, and somebody might be like, Hey, were you perhaps, uh, Pale Horse in the other group? Yeah, that's me. So you see that kind of, that kind of, uh, lingering, staying around. But again, I've done groups that I've been in undercover, and they're a white supremacy neo-Nazi group— not accelerationist, but neo-Nazi, National Socialist.

And 5 months, I've read every single post, thousands thousands, thousands of posts. Didn't want to miss a single one because I wanted to make sure. But at the end of that 5 months, I go to the case team and I'm like, dude, it's just First Amendment protected speech. They, they are spewing some hate and some horrific stuff, but it's protected under the First Amendment. And then you move on. So my thing is, I say this, and this goes for like all extremism, especially when you get into like the lone wolf type stuff, which is what things like The Siege tell you to do. Don't go out on the street corner with a picket sign yelling. Number one, you're identifying who you are, making yourself a target. Number two, you're doing nothing. Go do that hidden attack kind of thing, like Pat, who said he was a ghost. He said, I can literally take— we could create a ghost house to house our brothers who have been doxxed, and we can become a ghost hit team, lay out there with a revolver like a homeless person. You learn the pattern. Next day they're walking through, pow, walk off.

Go do stuff like that. They were coming up with all kinds of crazy stuff like that. But what I will say is this: just don't underestimate. If I showed you a picture of the kids from Columbine, the shooters before that happened, what would you say? If I showed you a picture of the Aurora theater shooter before that happened, what would you say? How about the Charleston kid with the bowl haircut? Who could barely fill— I mean, couldn't even fill up a Gold's Gym tank top, holding a Rebel flag and a .45 in his hand. What would you have said? But yet they all killed people.

After all your time at the Bureau and everything you've done, I mean, what advice do you have for families?

Uh, I'm— I, I, I don't like walking around on eggshells, living in fear. But don't put blinders on either, you know. I'm not saying be a helicopter parent per se, but like I said earlier, if your kids own a headset on Roblox and Minecraft, you know who they're talking to. There's some great stuff out there. There's a company called Bark. I actually installed it on my girls' phones when they were younger. But man, I don't know how many people they got working for them, but it will flag everything. And they even have their own phones now. So you got a Bark phone, you give that to your kid, and it's got a lot more, um, uh, avenues for you to thwart bad people with nefarious plans coming in. But I remember putting it on my girls' phones, and I mean, it would— you can make it as sensitive as you want. If it's suicide talk, sex talk, weapon talk, dope talk, anything, it'll flag it, screenshot it, send it right to you.

Yeah, I'm actually working on a application with my friend Ryan Montgomery.

Okay.

We uncovered all this stuff with, uh, 764, a lot of pedophilia stuff. We're coming out with an app, we're working on it right now.

Good, because that's where they're going to go. Like, even like in the Napster days, right? You go on Napster or these peer-to-peer networks, and I would go down to the ICAC, Innocent, you know, Images Group. There was a task force that's working the crimes against children, um, and you, it it would be like drinking from a fire hydrant if you went on there and you saw how many people were sending photos to each other and then how some of them are known victims that we've identified and stuff like that. And now with AI and these, I mean, they're making like— I saw one the other day. It's like, I don't know, it's like a robot woman. But it looked— as soon as I looked at it, I went, oh gosh, because I think like a bad person. I can, I can think about the sick minds and what they were going to— I'm like, I know who's going to be getting those dolls. For sure, man. And if they're doing that, how long before they try it on a real person? And I will just tell you my experience with pedophiles. If they're truthful, they'll tell you, I can't be fixed.

For me as a Christ follower, short of a miracle from God. But I've had them be truthful and say, if you let me out, I'm going to do it again. You know?

Shit.

Yeah. Craziness. But I'm still a glass is half full guy. I still try to be an optimist. Have I been depressed? Yeah. Can I get down on myself every now and then? Yeah. But I wake up the next day and I try to just— because you can— there's so much bad stuff out there, you could just ruin your whole life, make you want to crawl into a room and never come out. Do— they're still good out there. Yeah. Keep fighting the good fight. Proverbs, right? Keep fighting the good fight. I think so.

Well, Scott, it was an honor to interview you, man.

Thank you, man.

It really was.

I'll maybe, maybe I'll circle back when, uh, there may be some announcements. Let's see. I got some stuff in the works. We'll see. I hope. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing from it. Yeah. God bless. You too, man. Thank you Thank you very much, man. Appreciate it.

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