How an FBI Agent Infiltrated the KKK

If there's any snitches in the group, we kill the snitches and they fire shots out of a gun. Boom. Boom. And everybody's kind of getting scared.

>> April 21, 2017. A group of men stand in a remote field in the middle of Alabama.

>> It was nighttime and I am blindfolded.

I've been instructed to place my right hand on the right shoulder of the person in front of me in line because that signifies brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the Ku Klux Clan, the United States's oldest, most notorious white supremacist hate group.

This is one of their ceremonies. What they don't know, one of them is an FBI undercover agent, and he's no lightweight, 6'4, 260 lb, covered in tattoos. His nickname, Hillbilly Donnie Brasco. He's gone undercover as a contract killer, a contraband smuggler, an arms dealer. He's put dozens of people behind bars from drug dealers to violent motorcycle gangs to pedophiles.

He's befriended and brought down biker gangs and neo-Nazis. People who are planning kidnappings, murders, and the overall downfall of society.

>> And when he was saying, "We're going on a camping trip," what he was saying is, "We're going to kill somebody." And everybody's screaming, "Death to your, you know, f your Jewish God. Death to America." And then somebody says, "If there's any snitches in the group, we kill the snitches." and they fire shots out of a gun. Boom. Boom.

>> We drove all the way over to his ranch in Tennessee and he told us everything.

This is the story of Scott Payne, the redneck turned FBI agent who infiltrated America's underbelly.

>> The majority of this video is based on Scott Payne's book and podcast. Find the links in the description.

>> What I saw was a watery image. It was uh completely red and there was a demon looking at me in that watery kind of ripple image with a grin and long crooked finger looking at me saying come here smiling.

Scott is 14 years old and he's just seen a demon. The year before his parents divorced and Scott went down a dark path. Consulting spirits, watching diabolical horror movies, satanic rituals, deals with the devil. That's what brought him here. a friend's house spending the night. They've had a small amount of alcohol, but no drugs, no hallucinogens.

>> I would do like these little vignettes where I would pretend I was being possessed by a demon or I was the devil or whatever. I was on the couch and I was doing this scene from a movie where somebody is like being possessed by a demon. And so I'm fighting in my voice and then the demon voice comes in and there's this battle and at the end the demon wins and possesses the person. So that's what I act like happened and I'm laughing like the demon and I rolled over.

>> It all started as a mock demonic possession, but then he actually saw a demonic figure and this was his breaking point.

>> So let's just say after the demon scare, I got Jesus scared back into me and that was it. Not that the devil was down with me, but I was down with him. >> Halloween night 2019. This is Scott on his final major undercover mission. And this is a goat. It was stolen and is now at the center of a pagan ritual. It's been nearly 35 years since [music] Scott's first encounter with the devil.

But on this night, the devil is all around him. And he's definitely not done with Scott.

>> Now, we're all in a circle around the goat. Somehow I ended up at the back of it. I don't know how. It was bad luck on my part, I guess. But I'm holding the legs of the goat.

He's got this blade and he's bringing it up and bringing it down in a practice swing. Practice swing. Practice swing.

And finally, somebody says, "Just do it." Eisen comes down with every bit of force he's got and hits the back strap of the goat. And I don't even know if it broke a hair. I don't know if it's because the backstrap's too thick. Uh the blade was too dull, but he hit it and all you heard the goat was just go and I'm like, "Oh man, this is going to get bloody and bad real fast." >> The man swings again again. Nothing.

Finally, the blade is replaced with a gun.

>> I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." And he's like, "What?" I'm like, "Man, look at what you're shooting at. We're all in a circle around this thing." And then he looks, puts a round right in the head of the goat and it hits the ground.

So you think you're done. No, you're not done. Now they slice the throat of the goat and they fill up a cup full of blood.

>> One of them pulls out a sheet of LSD. He approaches each man one by one.

Basically, they would take the hit of acid under their tongue, chase it with the blood of the goat to signify the sacrifice or or solidify the sacrifice.

>> Scott is one of the few who decline.

>> So, when it gets around to me at the end, I'm looking at the blood and it's already coagulated. It's all chunky and clotty, and I'm looking at it going, "Man, I really don't want to turn this up and drink it. I mean, this is disgusting." So, I dipped my fingers deep into the blood, pulled them out, and then sucked all the blood off my fingers.

>> This is not the Ku Klux Clan. This group is younger, better equipped, and preparing for a blood bath. And not only animal blood, but the blood of any human who isn't one of them. Jewish and black Americans, and anyone they consider traders to the white race. They're by far the most dangerous group Scott will ever infiltrate. Unfortunately for these tripping, bloodrinking white supremacists, Scott Payne has other plans. It's exactly the kind of thing he spent the last 17 years working to prevent.

I became an FBI agent in 1998 and uh by 2002 I'd already done some undercovers for the FBI, but I wasn't yet certified through the FBI undercover school. So I finally got a slot.

>> September 2002, Quantico, Virginia. This is the FBI Academy. If you make it through the year-long application process, if you pass the physical and psychological assessments, the tests, the polygraphs, the interviews, the background checks, if you make it through all that, you end up here in a 20we training program. If you get through the 20 weeks, you become an FBI agent. Scott's been here before. Now he's back. About to start the training program for undercover agents. Getting admission to the program is hard enough.

Graduating is even harder. Only about half the admittes make it through. It's a two-eek school with no days off. We're very big on sleep deprivation. Um you're going through multiple scenarios of of all shapes and sizes. Um and it's [music] there's only 20 slots for the class.

>> Others break down. They make missteps during the high pressure scenarios. They grow delirious and erratic from the lack [music] of sleep. But Scott thrives. The sleep deprivation, the relentless roleplay, the grueling exercise. If anything, he feeds on it. Meanwhile, he's learning from his idols, legendary FBI agents like Joe Piston, who spent 6 years undercover with the Bunano crime family, but they don't always notice him.

>> So, I remember Joe Piston coming to speak and I was like a a kid in a candy store, man. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is Donnie Brasco. This dude did 6 years undercover in the mafia and uh he's teaching, but he has this he has this thing where he keeps kind of wanting to walk right up to the desk. So [laughter] he kept stepping on my feet and I, you know, I was trying to get out of his way and then finally as he's teaching, he just looks down at me and he says, "Jesus, kid, either you got the biggest feet I've ever seen or I can't see." And he throws a couple of bucks on the desk cuz he's like still in mafia mode. He throws a couple He goes, "Hey, go get yourself a shine on me." And uh I just took my feet and shoved them under the seat, man.

Joe Pistone may have scuffed up Scott's shoes. What neither of them could have known at the time is that Scott would go on to fill Joe's.

The FBI Academy trains agents to take down bad actors. More and more of these criminals operate online. Scammers, identity thieves, fraudsters, the list goes on. Such criminals rely on your personal data, your name, your phone number, your email address, sometimes even health related information.

>> So, once I was certified as an undercover in the FBI, if you're looking on paper, I really didn't jump out.

>> Scott doesn't have a fancy degree. He doesn't speak any foreign languages. His nickname is big country for obvious reasons. So he begins to work as an instructor at the school he just graduated from. Unorthodox, but it got him noticed by the right people.

>> I'm roleplaying in these scenarios and people that are there who were senior undercovers are watching cuz they're trying to recruit for other cases. And that's how my name started getting out there.

>> So after months, there's finally a possible assignment. One that Scott is perfect for. Sure, he's a redneck with almost no foreign language skills, not suitable for many undercovers. But he has something most other agents don't.

He doesn't need to pretend to be a hard- misfit. He is one. He knows he'll feel at home where he's about to go, but he has no idea how close he'll grow to the criminals he's been assigned to infiltrate and how hard it will be to turn on them.

>> People always have their own opinion of what undercover work is. Um, some people say it's acting, some people say it's lying. Essentially, this is the definition [snorts] of undercover work.

You are building relationships that you're going to betray.

Scott is on a mission and his targets, these men, have just arrived. They're members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, the main rivals of the Hell's Angels.

They've been implicated in drug trafficking, prostitution rings, moneyaundering, the list goes on. And they're notorious for violence against rival gangs. Infiltrating them is exceedingly difficult. Scott Payne is here to do just that. But there's a problem. Part of the intelligence Scott was given is wrong. He was told they wouldn't be wearing their colors.

Obviously, they are. Scott has hoped to strike up a casual conversation, letting the topic of motorcycles arise naturally. But these guys are advertising their gang affiliation. He can't just go up and say, "Hey, you guys ride." His only choice is to make them come to him. Luckily, another part of the intelligence is right. This guy road named Spanky loves to be the center of attention. So Scott steals it. He works the crowd. He tells jokes. He talks loudly. He draws attention to himself, making Spanky want [music] to steal it back. Soon enough, Spanky asks where Scott is from and sends him a drink.

>> Spanky's called me over. He's introducing me to other people. And of course, I'm getting more scrutiny. The more people I meet, the more scrutinized I am.

>> Everything seems to be going well, but the real scrutiny happens somewhere else. So I walk into the bathroom and as I'm at the urinal and a lot of bars there's like a little box in front of the urinal plex of glass. It might be flyers for a band coming up or a stripper coming to town or something like that. So I can see a little bit of a reflection and I see this jacked big dude come walking in [music] and I see him looking at each stall and he's like, "Okay, that's empty." I see him looking under the stalls to make sure nobody's in there and I'm watching this from a reflection and then he comes walking up right beside me and for a split second I thought I'm getting jumped. I'm getting jacked right here. And uh that didn't happen. He says, "So what brings you to Massachusetts?" >> All undercover FBI agents have a legend, a detailed madeup backstory that they have to commit to memory. He's from deep south Texas up in Massachusetts for work. He loves Harley's and whiskey and his name is Scott Callaway. As it so happens, the guy grilling him in the bathroom is also named Scott. [music] Scott Town.

>> A lot of undercovers, you bond with people, especially deep undercover long term. But there's never been another person I bonded with closer than Scott Town.

>> For a year and a half, Scott gets to know the outlaws. He drinks with them, rides with them, fights alongside them.

He gains their trust. He becomes their friend. They call him Tex. Scott's legend may be a lie, but the friendships are real. Scott Town becomes like a brother.

>> He likes to drink. I like to drink. He likes to fight. I like to fight. He likes to ride and lift. I like to ride and lift. We completed each other's sentences. We were just kind of cut from the same cloth.

>> They even both have a daughter who's the exact same age. Scott Town is kind of a doppelganger. The person Scott Payne might have become had he not gone into law enforcement. Another gang member, Brian Devaga, aka closine, also becomes a close friend of Scots. He said, "And these guys are my brothers and I grew up around them." He said, "But I really don't have that many friends. Somebody that I know would take a bullet for me and that I would take a bullet for." And in my mind, I'm looking at his face and I'm going, "Oh, no, man. Don't say it." And he looks at me and says, "You're one of those guys." Tomorrow is the big day.

Over the course of last year, Scott has convinced the outlaws that he's a high-ranking member of an international theft ring. They begin running jobs together. It begins small with insurance fraud and vehicle trafficking. An outlaw reports a motorcycle is stolen. He then files an insurance claim while Scott sells the motorcycle across the border.

A double win. Money from the insurance company, money from the sale. They do this again and again with motorcycles and other vehicles. But tomorrow's job is different. Some of the outlaws will be serving as security during a major drug deal, a gig arranged by Scott himself. He's revealed that he has connections with a Mexican drug cartel.

No surprise considering his line of work and his proximity to the Mexican border.

The stakes are high. If they get caught, they'll be looking at serious jail time.

And if something goes wrong during the deal, the bullets will start flying. So, when Scott is told to meet the outlaws at their clubhouse, he's not surprised.

They probably want to go over the plan one last time. Scott arrives. The place is familiar. He's been here countless times. He knows what's behind every door in the building except one. Clothesline leads him to that very door. Now he realizes that something is wrong.

Scott is told to strip. They need to check him for a wire. Because of the stress of this happening, I forget my middle name. I'm having an adrenaline dump. And for anybody who's ever had it, it can be any traumatic experience. But I'm having auditory exclusion. So what I hear sounds like I'm underwater. It's going whoosh whoosh. So it's slow.

I need you to take all your clothes off.

It's slowing down. I'm getting time dilation in my eyes. Everything I see is in screen grabs. Click, click, click. I can feel my heart beating through my entire body. My hamstrings get rubbery.

Now, clothesline has instructed me to take all my clothes off. Here's what I'll tell you.

If I'm not wired, it's just an embarrassing moment. I'm naked in a small crawl space with two guys with pistols. Problem is, I'm wired to the hill.

>> But they don't find anything. Scott's recording equipment is not taped to his chest, but in his clothing. So, my adrenaline starts settling and I'm starting to come back to normal and I think I'm done. And I get my pants back up. I don't know if I have my boots on yet or not. And then clos line grabs a piece of clothing that I was wearing.

And that piece of clothing has a recording device in it. And I'm watching him and he starts grabbing the clothing and he's going through it nice and slow with his fingers. And I don't realize I do it, but I there's an audible sigh.

You can hear me go cuz I don't even know. I don't even know I'm doing it. And he looks right at it and misses it.

And uh I live to fight another day. I live to fight another day.

Two moving trucks enter the parking lot of the Brockton Holiday Inn. One is filled with drugs. The other is filled with money. A Mexican drug cartel is selling 40 kg of cocaine and 1,000 lb of marijuana to Canadian buyers. The Mexicans aren't taking any risks.

They've arranged an American security detail. The outlaws. Surveillance at every entrance. Four men in the parking lot there to provide protection, unload the drugs, and count the money. Everyone is armed and antsy. One false move and all hell could break loose. The deal is wrapped up quickly. The transfer is complete. All the money's there. The outlaws are particularly relieved. They may be tough, but this is their first time working with a cartel. Now they'll get paid $15,000 for their services.

Scott counts out the cash. He did it. He successfully tricked them. The cartel FBI agents. The Canadians also FBI agents.

8 months later, a hotel in Nevada.

Scott's been laying low, coordinating his undercovers from afar. His outlaw friends think he's going through a divorce. [music] In reality, he's been diagnosed as overassigned after experiencing a severe stress related panic attack. He's been ordered to take a 6-month timeout. He's been teaching during this time. His current class, ironically enough, is called undercover stressors. All the students have gone to bed, but Scott's only just returned to his hotel room. It's early 4 or 5:00 a.m. The drug deal back in November gave the FBI all the evidence necessary to arrest and imprison multiple outlaw members, but the operation has continued until today, the day of the takeown.

Scott doesn't think he'll hear from any of them again, but then his phone rings.

It's Scott Town, and he's concerned.

He's heard some arrests were made, and he wanted his friend to know about it.

He says he's going to take a shower and gather more information. He'll report back.

>> And the last words we spoke to each other were, he said, "I love you, brother." And I said, "I love you, too." And that was the last words I spoke to him. And probably about 45 minutes after that, a SWAT team hit his house and he went to jail.

>> In the end, 15 outlaws were arrested as a result of Operation Roadkill. One of them was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Closine got 12 and a half years.

Scott Town 7. The Outlaws never saw their friend Scott Callaway again.

The Ku Klux Clan emerged in the wake of the American Civil War. From the very beginning, they were racist to the core, [music] reigning terror and death on black Americans. In the late 19th century, they fgged, tortured, and lynched politically active black men, raped their wives, shot their children, and burned their schools. Historians consider them to be America's first terrorist movement. Today, the KKK remains active, but only as a shadow of its former self. Fewer members, less influence. However, Burning Crosses is still one of their favorite things to do, and they've stayed true to their roots. Naturally, as a terrorist organization, they have to act in secrecy. You might assume that infiltrating them as an FBI agent is not the easiest feat.

>> So, you may ask yourself, how do you contact the United Clans of America?

Well, it turns out the group I was looking at had a hotline.

>> Scott starts talking to a guy named John Jack, a clansman whose passion for Jack Daniels earned him this nickname. Scott tells him he's got the number from a group of bikers he met at a gas station.

It's a plausible story. Scott looks the part and his time with the outlaws taught him how to play it. Biker gangs and white supremacists often run in the same circles. Jack starts talking about this rally that's coming up. Vendors, burning crosses, country music, the usual. but there's a problem.

>> He said, "I'm not going to lie to you, Scott. I had a band lined up, but the singer just got locked up, and I really don't know what the hell I'm going to do about music." And I thought, "This could be my end." And I said, "Did I happen to mention that I'm a musician and a singer?" I said, "Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll bring my acoustic and my PA system. When I get there, you can come meet me by the car. I'll strum a couple of tunes for you if you think I suck." And he's like, "Oh, hell, this is going to be great. It's going to be great." Scott doesn't know that he just signed up for something far more sinister.

April 21st, 2017. It's the day of the Kulux Clan rally.

>> I got lost multiple times until I finally drove up on this empty, I don't know, lot fenced in in the middle of nowhere. But it wasn't hard to spot because the Nighthawks, which would be the clan members in all black, who were the security force, are all standing at the gate with guns. And a lot of these people were felons. Scott's ready for an interesting time. He's been to plenty of biker gatherings, and perhaps this will be similar. During his mission, Scott will be taught the KKK's Constitution and bylaws, studying the Black Clansman Handbook, which he'll learn to refer to as the Claren. He'll become familiar with the original mystic insignia of the clansmen. He'll learn this all in class with a K so that he can pass the Kuno test, a prerequisite to getting fitted for a robe. Kuno stands for character, honor, duty.

It's getting dark and he's been invited to participate in a naturalization ceremony. He has no idea what this means, but all the newbies are doing it.

He'd stick out if he didn't. And that's how he finds himself in the middle of a field, blindfolded, holding the shoulder of the man in front of him, a gesture meant to signify brotherhood. They are told to raise their right hands and repeat an oath.

>> I do swear from this moment forward.

>> And then they tell us to get down on our knees >> to fostering the welfare of the white race.

>> So I'm on my knees blindfolded >> and further the work of America's greatest movement. They take my blindfold off and there's a Clue Clust clan member in a green robe and he has this sword and he kind of knits me.

>> The United Clans of America.

>> And then we all hug and there's like a little bit of a celebration and I'm not sure what happened. And then it hits me as I'm walking to my truck. I'm like, I think I just joined the damn clan. Yep, that's what that was. So I got naturalized in the clue clutch clan that night. Scott's time at the KKK will end up being relatively short-lived. The case isn't really going anywhere. And there's another group coming into focus, a far more dangerous one.

>> In the FBI, we started encountering more violent type extremism. Not not the KKK types. We're talking advanced neo-Nazism.

And it led me to an accelerationist group called the base. The base mission will provide to be far more extreme than anything Scott has ever seen.

>> The network of violent white an extremist group known as the base violent neo-Nazi terrorist >> paramilitary group called the base.

>> On August 11th, 2017, crowds of people marched through the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, chanting racist and anti-semitic slogans. They were protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the famous Confederate general. The next day, they were met by counterprotesters, and things quickly turned violent.

Then they turned deadly. A white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, injuring 35 people and killing Heather Hayer. For some, the Unite the Right rally was a wakeup call, surprising proof that white supremacy persists in America. To others, it was a grim reminder and frightening evidence that white supremacists were feeling emboldened enough to come out of the shadows. The first accelerationist group emerged in 2015. They called themselves Adam Buffin Division. They'd been inspired by the writings of the neo-Nazi James Mason, whose book Siege had become a sort of Bible for accelerationists.

The book denies the Holocaust and attacks homosexuals and Jewish people.

It also calls for organized violence, specifically for the formation of terror cells prepared to wage war against the system. Initially regarded as fringe or even cringe, accelerationism steadily gained traction. By 2021, roughly 90% of white nationalist groups identified as accelerationist.

That same year, the US director of national intelligence identified racially motivated violent extremists as the most lethal domestic terrorism threat. More than other white supremacist ideologies, accelerationism insists on the importance of direct violent action. The kind of action taken by the people they call saints. Like St.

Terren for Brenton Tarant, the Australian white supremacist who attacked two mosques in Christ Church, New Zealand. He killed 51 people. Or St.

Roof for Dylan Roof who killed nine people, all black, during a church service in Charleston, South Carolina.

This is the kind of action accelerationists believe in. action that will further destabilize society that might finally lead to societal chaos.

They are explicit about this. ROF, for example, said he'd hope to ignite a race war. Failing that, though, the purpose is to inspire more violence, which is exactly what such attacks have done.

Scott Payne just signed up on Facebook.

He's about to publish another racist post. His goal is to get banned, but nothing happens. A fellow agent points out that he doesn't have any friends. He adds a few people and that does it. He's promptly kicked off. Okay, well done. Next up is Gab, a social networking site well known for its tolerant stance towards far-right users.

He participates in forms with names like whites only. This will further elevate his credentials. On July 15th, 2019, he writes an email.

>> I've been seeing your stuff and I'm definitely interested. Survival and self-defense. I like it.

>> The next day, a ping.

>> Thanks for contacting the base. You can learn more about us on our official Gab account at the base. If you're interested in joining, please provide the following info to begin the vetting process. The base is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group. They were just founded a year ago, and they are accelerationists through and through. Their plan entails assassinations, sabotage, and acts of terrorism. Their targets are black people, Jewish people, and anyone they consider traitors to the white race.

>> They want to do guerrilla warfare tactics. So, it's murdering people and disappearing. It's poisoning a water system, taking down a power grid, derailing the train, anything that cause chaos.

>> The idea is that after the collapse, the group cells scattered across the world will form white ethnostates led by white supremacists. This event, Total Societal Collapse, has a special name, the Bugaloo.

Now Scott is trying to join them. They ask for his name, White Warrior 88, and his age, 44. Scott Payne is actually 48, but he knows most base members are between 18 and 25. He wants to seem as young as possible. Sex, race, location, military experience, fitness level, special training, and organization affiliations.

Here, his past undercover experiences pay off. He mentions the clan and biker gangs. So, here I am approximately for a week or more. I'm emailing back and forth to somebody with a Proton email account and they're asking me all kinds of questions about my ethnicity, what I can bring to the table, what is my history, and I laid out a story that I was a old biker, shocker, and a former skin head from South Carolina.

>> As Scott would find out later, the owner of that email account was none other than the founder of the base himself.

online. He's known as Norman Spear and Roman Wolf. He's been on the public's radar since 2018, but his true identity is unknown. That is unless you're in the FBI. Ronaldo Nazaro is 45, American, born in New Jersey. He'd worked as a contractor in Iraq for the Department of Justice. Now he's in Russia, but is 2019. You can organize neo-Nazis into a network of accelerationist insurgents from just about anywhere. The email exchange continues for less than a week.

Then Scott is invited for a phone interview. It's supposed to take 30 minutes but ends up lasting an hour. Now both Scott and the base have a 24-hour grace period. After that, Scott will need to make the decision. Does he truly want to join?

>> I pass the test and they bring me in.

And they asked me, "Hey, where are you located?" And I said, "In East Tennessee." And they said, "The closest sale to you is in North Georgia." >> That's where Scott will have to pass one final test, an in-person vetting session.

August 2, 2019, Rome, Georgia. To Scott, the men look more like boys. He knows that one of them is the leader of the base's Rome cell, but that's it. They tell him to step out of his truck. Scott isn't wearing a wire. He knows they'll check.

But hidden in his truck is a tracking device put there by his case team. As long as Scott is near his truck, his team will be able to find him. I step out um you know shake hands or whatever and he says, "Hey, I need you to put your phone in airplane mode." And I said, "Okay." He pulls out this wand thing that I'd never seen before. It looked like a geer counter. It had a big triangle card in it, lights all over it.

He wands me and I pass cuz I'm fine. I don't have anything. Then he starts wanding my truck. No big deal until he starts going to the back driver's side of my truck, which is where the case team placed my tracker. That thing he's holding his hand starts going crazy. The closer he gets to the back of the truck, it starts beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping. I see colors going on it. I'm like, "Oh no, man. It's picking up the tractor." >> Scott braces for a fight. He's alone.

His team knows where he is, but they have no idea something is wrong.

But he gets lucky. The other guy wonders if the device is picking up the power lines >> and he walks over and it goes crazy and he's like, "Damn it." Yeah. Whatever. He says, "Yeah, it's the power lines. Hey, follow us to another location." >> Scott has to act fast. He has to get the tracker deactivated.

>> And I'm calling the case team and I'm like, "Hey, you need to shut that tracker off." And at first they're like, "Well, we can't shut it off." And I'm like, "You have to shut it off." And they're like, "Well, if we shut it off, we're not sure. What if we can't get it back on and we lose you?" I said, "Here's what I'm telling you. Whatever they have is picking up the tracker. If you don't shut it off, this is going to be a very fast undercover cuz it's going to be over as soon as we get to where we're going." >> They arrive at an abandoned concrete plant.

>> And I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, this is great. How many movies have I seen where somebody's killed in an abandoned concrete plant? I hope they got the tracker off. They pull out the wand.

They won me and I I passed.

>> Scott is in. By this point, Scott's been around the block, the Outlaws, the Kulux Clan, but nothing could prepare him for what comes next.

Scott has been with the base for over 2 months now. As a boy, he loved camping with his parents and friends. He'd explore the woods, go fishing, but the camping trip he's just been invited to isn't like the ones he used to go on.

The list of things to bring contains some unusual items, weapons, ammunition, and the same kind of camouflage. Flect tarn worn by the German military. This is no ordinary camping trip. This is a hay camp, an extended training session to prepare members for the bugaloo.

Hand-to- hand combat, weapons drills, grappling. By [snorts] now, Scott has attended a number of similar training sessions, but this one is different.

It's longer, 3 to 4 days, and it's bigger with base members coming in from around the country, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Delaware. He's familiar with many of the men he'll be camping with.

At least he knows most of their online pseudonyms. Can't go back, is Punish Snake, Dimma, Big Siege, Zumnat, all from out of state. And of course, he knows his fellow Georgia cell members, Helter Skelter, and Pestilence, who vetted Scott back in August with the cell leader himself.

TMBB, the militant Buddhist. Everyone knows Scott by his code name, Pill Horse. When you're an undercover agent, some cliches are true. Scott has learned to expect the unexpected. Yet, he fails to expect what would happen at the Halloween hate camp. I wake up to a pounding on my window. Pale horse, pale horse, you got to wake up. You got away.

I'm like, "What's up, man? What's going on?" They're like, "Hey, you got to get out here and see this." I've been doing undercover since 1996 at this point. And I have never been with a group of people where I had to burn Bibles, burn American flags. [music] I damn sure wasn't part of a group that went out and stole a goat and we sacrificed it at a pagan ritual and drank its blood. And I did all that in 3 days with these guys.

>> After they decapitated the goat, the group comes together for a barbecue.

They roast the goat over an open fire and have it for dinner. All of this, of course, while tripping balls.

It's impossible to know what blossomed in their brains that night, what hallucinatory horrors they saw. If their drug field fantasies were anything like their sober ones, then they dreamed of death and destruction, of killing black Americans, Jews, anti-fascists, and communists, of the bugaloo. Scott has become upsettingly familiar with these fantasies and with the beliefs that produce them. Behind each pseudonym is a young man, and within each young man is a darkness. The militant Buddhist real name is Luke Lane. If the bugaloo requires it, he says he could kill his dad. Pestilence is Jacob Codly. He believes Hitler is still alive. Michael Helterbrand, aka Helter Skelter, says he'd have no problem killing a commie kid. Punish Snake, a former Canadian soldier who'd been doxed by an undercover journalist, gets emotional talking about it, but he knows he'll have to kill his ex- fiance when the Bugaloo kicks off. She's half black.

Scott Payne records all of this and as he earns their trust, he records more.

>> And we did more and more trainings through that Saturday. But by that Saturday night, we went back down to the holy site and had a bonfire. And that's where the American flags were burned.

That's where holy Bibles were set on fire and everybody's screaming, "Death to your, you know, f your Jewish God.

Death to America." And when that training camp ended, that's when I advanced even more in them trusting me.

And that's when TMBB and Pestilence started bringing me in on murder plots that they had.

>> It's more than 2 months later and Scott is back at TMBB's farm, the 100 acre property where the Halloween hate camp took place. For the last few weeks, TMBB has been talking about another camping trip, but he's been ky. He doesn't want to share information via chat. Scott has convinced him to meet. He wants details.

It turns out the camping trip isn't a camping trip. It's a hit job.

>> PMBB creates a separate chat room called the camping trip. And when he was saying we're going on a camping trip, what he was saying is we're going to kill somebody.

>> Their target is an active Antifa couple in the Georgia area.

>> It was going to be me, TMBB, Pestilence, and Helter Skelter. and we were all going to make entry into the house. TMBB wanted me to go with him to kill everybody while Helter Skelter would be covering out the window to make sure no cops were coming and stuff like that or help. And then Peslence was going to set the house on fire. But in the planning of everything, at one point Helter Skelter says, "Hey, if you don't mind, I'd like to pop my cherry on this one." That confused me cuz it means something completely different to me.

And I'm like, "What do you mean?" and he said, "I would like to actually put a bullet in somebody's head as well." >> After casing the house, they begin the next phase of the murder plot planning.

>> It was pretty extensive. Like you go to a camping site, we leave everything digital, everything, phones, everything.

There we go scrub ourselves at a pay by the hour motel. We tape our pants to our shoes, our gloves to our shirts.

um Vaseline on eyebrows and facial hair.

So, this is all to avoid leaving DNA um for law enforcement. At one point, TMBB had done research and he said that he read that the first time somebody kills somebody, they lose control of their Bibles. So, he was suggesting that we all wear adult diapers. I didn't tell him that I'd killed somebody before, but I told him I think I'm okay. I don't need any diapers.

I was just as shocked when I got brought in on this murder plot as most people were. But while this is going on, the Baltimore sale, which is can't go back in Eisen and [music] Punish Snake, are planning to go to this Second Amendment gun rights rally in Virginia that they thought was going to be the kickoff of the Bugaloo and the D-Day, the race war.

Their idea was they knew you're going to have a bunch of second amendment people there, militias, 3enters, you're going to have cops, you're going to have protesters. What if you pop a couple of rounds into that crowd? Nobody know who's shooting at who and everybody starts shooting each other. That could be the set off.

>> Scott and his team know they have to stop him and there's no time to lose.

The Pro Firearms Rally is on January 20th, 2020, just a few months away. They jump into action. The next weeks are a flurry of activity, meeting, coordinating, and planning.

Finally, the day of the bus arrives.

>> It's a [music] Wednesday and I'm in Rome, Georgia. I pick up Luke, who's TMBB, to go to lunch and we pull out and as I'm driving down the road, I knew what my ruse was going to be. I was going to say something was wrong with the truck, but sure as you know what, the truck made some loud sound I've never heard. I didn't hit anything.

Something just went and I was like, "Did you hear that?" He's like, "Yeah." And I go, "Man, if my if my brake calipers are frozen again, I'm going to be cuz that did happen." So, I took a left out of his neighborhood pre-planned by the SWAT team. And I pull up tight to a fence.

And as I go, "Hey, I'm going to get out and check the truck." So, I'm walking around the back of the truck. Another vehicle pulls up. He doesn't know who they are. I know who they are. They're part of the case team. And the guy says, "Hey, man. You need any help with that?" And I look up and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's you. What are you doing in Rome, Georgia?" He goes, "What are you doing here?" I was like, "Man, I haven't seen you." And and as I'm doing that, there's the distraction. Here comes a Bearcat with a SWAT team over the hill barreling down the hill. But Luke's looking at me, not at the car coming. And when that thing is coming, I jump in the back of the agent's truck and I'm like, "Go, go, go." And you could hear the SWAT team giving commands. And and luckily, the arrest went down without an incident. The next morning, SWAT teams arrested at K can't go back and punish Snake.

>> Essentially, we kind of we kind of tore down the base.

Luke Lane, aka TMBB, was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Jacob Carterly, pestilence got 13. William Bilbro is five. Patrick Matthews, Punish Snake, and Brian Lemley, can't go back 9 years.

According to a recent Guardian article, the base is enjoying a resurgence. Its founder, Ronaldo Nazaro, continues to live in St. Petersburg.

Scott retired in June 2021. At his retirement ceremony attended by friends, family, colleagues, and top FBI brass, June 30th was named Scott Payne Day.

Infiltration is not just a mission, it is a metamorphosis. To walk among those who preach division, an agent must carry the weight of deception while holding fast to the light of truth. Every handshake, every whispered vow, becomes a test of endurance between identity and disguise. But what toll does such masquerade take on the soul of justice? And as the mask finally cracks, we must ask: when hatred is unmasked, does the world truly change or does it simply find a new hood to hide behind? Let me know on a comment section and if you have made this far please don't forget to like and subscribe for more untill next time thank you.