(gentle music) - [Alison] This week on "The A List", I learn what it takes to live a life undercover.

- There's all kinds of stressors that come with it.

Like, you know, the fear of being found out, the fear of the case ending, or just the stress of you realizing the betrayal that's gonna happen at the end, if you have built really close relationships and at the end, you know, you're gonna have to betray that person because you're gonna have to lock 'em up.

So there's all kinds of stuff like that.

And then there's the danger, too, of just being in there.

And if they find out who you are, depending on which group, it could be death right there.

- Join me as I sit down with retired FBI agent Scott Payne, coming up next on "The A List".

(upbeat music) Scott Payne spent over two decades on duty with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Over the course of his tenure, he served as the primary undercover agent on investigations into violent motorcycle gangs, domestic terrorists, hate groups, and more.

He spent years witnessing the kind of criminal activity that most of us couldn't even fathom.

And now with his new book, "Code Name: Pale Horse", he's sharing some of the darkest moments of his career and shining a light on some of the biggest threats facing America today.

Well, Scott, welcome to "The A List".

- Thank you for having me.

- Well, thank you for having us in your, I'm calling it a man cave, but I don't know, is this a hideout?

What happens with retired FBI agents?

Do you- - They call it a barndominium, I think.

I don't know.

- A barndominium.

I'm adding that to my vocabulary.

- Yeah.

It started as a project to park and then my music.

I wanted a place where I could play and not bother everybody in the house.

And then it became an office and a loft and everything else, so.

- Well, I've read your book, I've listened to your book.

I know your story.

I'm so excited to share it with all of our viewers.

But I have to say, I am so anxious to talk to you, and I mean that in two ways.

Anxious because I'm excited, but also hearing your story gave me such anxiety, mostly because in the thick of things as an undercover FBI agent and everything you have done to help, I think, you know, spread light in such a dark place.

But also that you've come out from being undercover.

And I wanna start there when you retired in 2021, is that correct?

- Mm-hmm.

Yes, ma'am.

- What was the first time where you decided to tell your story of what you had done and felt like you were safe to do it?

- It was kind of already in a transition because for the FBI, I traveled all over the country and once to Africa teaching blocks of instruction based on my experience.

So it might be a three-hour teaching block that covered all the years in the Outlaws and everything around that.

And then me crashing mentally and physically, and you kind of end with like a mental health block.

I was already teaching that.

Then when I started getting into the domestic terrorism and white supremacy stuff, I'm like, "Hey, here's more stuff that maybe people don't know."

I didn't know it.

We start putting that together, and I'm traveling around, so I was already teaching it and not just to law enforcement.

We have citizens academies or liaisons I might go speak.

So it was kind of already happening.

- Yeah.

- And then I started meeting people.

I had friends in the industry, and one thing leads to another.

You know, it was like, "Hey, you need to meet this person.

You need to meet that person."

'Cause, originally, I didn't wanna do a book.

I didn't wanna do the Rolling Stone Magazine article.

It just happened.

And here we are.

- Well, let's start at the beginning.

So you grew up in South Carolina?

- [Scott] Yes, ma'am.

- When did you know you wanted to go into law enforcement?

- I didn't.

Sometimes when I'm talking to people, I'm, like, I committed a lot of crimes too.

I just didn't get arrested and charged and convicted.

Had I been, I wouldn't have been able to be an agent.

I played high school ball, all that.

I went to college.

Somewhere in college, I was taking an elective, and I came across a criminal justice class and I was like, "Man, I really like this."

Not like the business and tort law and all that stuff.

But I mean like criminology, forensics, the constitution, and I really liked it.

And from there, it just kept growing and growing.

'Cause, at first, I thought I was gonna be an attorney and that lasted about two weeks.

'Cause I figured out, I'm, like, I'm not gonna be a good attorney.

I would not be good at all.

If I was the prosecutor, I'd probably be screaming, shaking, you know.

And if I was the defense attorney and they told me they did it, I'd probably say, "Well, they did it," which isn't gonna get me any clients.

But then I started doing internships and then I was bouncing already.

And then at some of the places I bounced at, they would have a cop outside.

And then I started just talking and learning.

And whenever I did my first ride along with a cop, that was it.

I knew.

- So what planted the seed there that made you think, "I wanna go with the FBI"?

And does one say that, "I wanna go with the FBI"?

Do you get tapped for the FBI?

Is it, I mean, I imagine it is quite a rigorous and elite process.

- Yeah.

The thing that we were kind of looking at, a lot of people that worked at the sheriff's office is where are you gonna be in five years?

Because in a lot of sheriff's offices and police departments, you won't get your raises every year.

Like, the county council will give themselves a raise, but they won't give the cops a raise, but they'll raise the starting pay.

So at some point, I could literally quit the sheriff's office, walk back in and make as much or more money than I was making.

But I guess I could put the blame on or the idea on a sergeant I had.

'Cause he told me, I was in Southern Command narcotics and we were out doing surveillance on something, and I'm in the car with him and he told me, my nickname was Kingpin at that time.

He said, "You know, Kingpin, if I was you and I was your age and I had a four-year degree and I was single, I'd apply with the FBI, and I'd put New York as my first office."

And I'm like, "What is wrong with you?

What are you smoking, man?

There's no, what?

No!"

I thought, I mean, I'd only seen the FBI really on, like, bank robberies.

I didn't know they worked everything that they did.

And his opinion was the FBI was the hardest to get hired by.

And I applied, and a year later I was hired.

And even though New York City was number 36 out of 56 on my list, I got New York City.

So from my going-away party, I told him, "Hey, man, you jinx me."

But it was great.

It was good.

- So when did you figure out that you wanted to do undercover work?

Was that something that you have to come with a certain skillset?

Is that something where someone looks at you again and says, "You'd be right for this job"?

I mean, it's kind of obvious.

You sorta look the part to be able to go undercover and people not realize that you are a good guy and not the bad guy.

Not to simplify it so much, but- - Thanks.

Yeah.

It's a blessing and a curse.

Right?

- Right.

- It really started at the sheriff's office.

- Okay.

- Because after three years in uniform, I became a vice and narcotics investigator.

So now you're going plain clothes, you're learning how to develop sources, run sources, make drug buys, controlled evidence buys.

And at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, I went, it's a one-week course to get certified in undercover techniques.

From there, I was starting to do street-level stuff, which would be, like, just roll up on the corner of a high drug trafficking area and roll down the window, buy dope.

And I really loved it.

I don't know what it was, but any undercover, it could be the cheesiest undercover movie book.

I was reading them all.

I loved them all.

And then I started looking back, probably when I got in the FBI, I looked back at my personality and things I did my whole life.

And you can see it.

I always had that shepherd mentality, kind of a servant's heart, bully, a bully-type things, sheep dog kind of thing.

But also being able to connect with people.

And I don't think you have to do that.

There's plenty of great, unbelievable undercovers I know that don't talk as much as I do, don't look like I do, but that's fine.

You can still be really good.

There's men and women out there that have done way more than me, but I use my skillset.

- Along those lines, what do you think is a huge misconception about doing undercover work?

- That it's fun and easy all the time.

That it's all cakes and pies.

You know, big yachts flying around first class.

It's not all that, it can be tough.

It can be real hard.

There's all kinds of stressors that come with it.

Like, you know, the fear of being found out, the fear of the case ending, or just the stress of you realizing the betrayal that's gonna happen at the end if you have built really close relationships, and at the end, you know, you're gonna have to betray that person 'cause you're gonna have to lock 'em up.

So there's all kinds of stuff like that.

And then there's the danger too of just being in there.

And if they find out who you are, depending on which group, it could be death right there.

(gentle upbeat music) - Scott spent years infiltrating infamous hate groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, and the lesser known white supremacist organization, The Base.

But it was during his time with the Outlaws, a notorious motorcycle gang that Scott experienced one of his most chilling brushes with mortality.

So let's talk about some of that infiltration.

- Hmm.

- It starts with Boston and a motorcycle group.

- I had done plenty of undercovers before that.

But that's, yeah, that's a big one.

- That's a big one.

- Yeah.

- Talk to me a little bit about how that started.

- Yeah, so the Outlaws is, the top four one-percenter clubs are, like, Hells Angels, Outlaws, and then it's probably like Bandidos and Pagans as far as the largest worldwide.

But the Boston Division of the FBI had been building a case, and they got to the point to where they wanted to try to insert an undercover.

I went and got interviewed for it, I got picked, and then it was off to the races.

How do you get in, how do you do things?

But again, my skillset is I am a biker.

You know, I grew up around that stuff.

My narcotic squad at the sheriff's office, I can show you pictures of us at Myrtle Beach Bike Week where we looked like everybody else.

So it kind of, for me, it is probably the most fun I've ever had on a long-term deep undercover, except for some scary moments.

But as far as being in my element, you know, it was good.

- There's one particularly scary moment in the book.

Will you share that?

- Sure.

After a year and a half, it was a two-year case, but after a year and a half undercover, I had developed some very close relationships.

We had done what they thought were a lot of criminal activities together.

Like, they would report vehicles stolen, sell 'em to me at a stolen price.

I would take 'em to Mexico, they would steal vehicles, sell 'em to me at a stolen price.

They would carjack somebody.

And then you start finding out more and more home invasions, a lot of drug deals.

So at a year and a half in, we upped the ante being the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office.

We upped the ante and said, "Look, let's do a dope deal."

Because they were asking from the very beginning, "Hey, you're on the border."

'Cause I was based out of McAllen, Texas.

I was on the border.

So if I meet you and you say, "Hey, man, where you from?"

"I'm from Texas."

"Where at?"

"I'm on the bottom.

I'm on the border."

"How much can you get a kilo of cocaine for?"

That's the first question.

I'm like, "Well, if anybody needed predication..." - Right.

- "It's here now."

But at a year and a half in, we decided to, and it takes a long time to lay it out so it's not suspicious.

So I won't bore you with all the details, but the gist is we were getting ready to do a drug deal and they were gonna help protect the drug deal so they can meet my cartel contacts.

And the night before the deal, I got called to the clubhouse, and I'd been there, I don't know how many times, 20, who knows.

And I went in and I was wired to the hilt because that's my job, to get evidence for the United States Attorney's Office and the FBI to build that case.

And when I went in, I wasn't there that long.

And my second closest relationship was an enforcer named Clothesline.

His road name was Clothesline.

And he said, "Hey, Tex, you got a minute?"

And I said, "Yeah."

They carried me down into, I say, a basement, but it's not a basement.

Kinda like a crawl space, just a little room basically, you go down a tight stairwell to a very small area.

And when I was following him, another Outlaw came in behind me and we went downstairs and I was like, "This isn't good.

Something's not right."

And what we found out later is that the order had come from the top all the way down to check me before we did this deal.

So they bring me down in that crawl space and at gunpoint they show me their pistols.

- Did you think that was the end?

Or you think this is it?

- I'm in work, ma'am.

I'm crapping my pants.

I mean, you know.

I laugh now, but it's an adrenaline dump.

You're scared.

You're having auditory exclusion.

Everything slows down.

Everything's going whoosh, whoosh.

It feels like it's 10 minutes, but it might not be a minute.

The time dilation, everything you look at is clicking and screen grabs.

You can hear and feel your heart beating.

And that happened, that's an adrenaline dump.

And then maybe I'll level back up and then something else happens and I dump again.

But they told me to write down, Clothesline said there's a lot of stuff going on.

That's not his words, but he said there's a lot of stuff going on.

It's my job to protect everybody.

I need you to write down your full name, date of birth, social, address, phone number, even though we got it.

He goes, "I'm not gonna ask you kids' names.

Not, like, we can't find out.

And then I need you to take all your clothes off 'cause I'm gonna check you for a wire."

Problem was I was wired, so I'll take everything off except from the ankles up.

I was nude.

Because I took my boots off, all my clothes off except my pants.

I just dropped them and he finishes checking me.

I pull my pants back up.

- So I'm gonna suggest, so you were wired but not on your body.

It had to be on your clothes somewhere.

- It's in places.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Not to reveal too much.

- No, not to reveal too much.

But I had multiple, I always carried backups because what if the video/audio went down?

At least I had an audio running behind.

And that's for liability and that's for building a case.

And that's also so defense can't be like, "How come you didn't record this part," kind of thing.

It's all there, hopefully, if the devices work, and sometimes they don't.

So I pull my underwear and pants back up, and I'm like, "I might have got my boots on and I think I'm done."

So now I'm starting to level back up.

And then he grabs a piece of clothing and then that piece of clothing was a recording device.

And he says, "Hey, I'm not gonna find anything in here.

I don't want to, like, some pictures of my old lady."

And he kinda laughs and I kinda, like, laugh.

But it's again, talking to me now, if you listen to the recording, it's completely different.

This is my baseline.

I'm in there going, (imitates crying) "I hope not," you know.

So he starts kneading this piece of clothing.

He's going through it with his hands and he's going up and, again, I don't even know I do it.

I'm sitting there and I'm watching, and you can hear an audible sigh because I know I'm not free to leave.

Even if I could make it past these two guys with two guns, I get upstairs, there's 10-plus more Outlaws, the door is barricaded, it's got a metal bar across it, it's deadbolted.

What are you gonna do?

So he's going, and I don't even know how I do it.

You can literally hear me say, (groaning) just watching.

And he misses it.

He looks at it, looks right at it, and misses it.

And I lived to fight another day.

But that was, yeah, that was pretty crazy.

(gentle upbeat music) - Navigating his way through that close call and many other high-stakes situations has earned Scott the nickname the Hillbilly Donnie Brasco, and a reputation as one of the FBI's foremost undercover agents.

And along the way, he found some unexpected tactics to creating and staying true to his aliases under pressure.

You've got a lot of nicknames and you have a lot of pseudonyms.

First, I wanna talk about your fake names, right, your personalities.

How'd you come up with these names?

- So when I got my first fake ID as an undercover, I mean, I had a fake ID when I was a kid, but I was trying to figure out, "Man, where am I gonna get my name from?"

So I came up with this method that is, it's my first name 'cause Scott's common, my middle name is the first name of a great friend.

And the last name is the name of a wrestler, a professional wrestler.

So Scott Callaway is Undertaker Calaway, of course, there wasn't Google back then.

I spelt it with two L's, this was one L, but Scott Callaway, Anderson, Scott Joseph Anderson, that's Arn Anderson, the wrestler.

- Yeah.

- Scott Williams.

That's Stone Cold Steve Austin's real last name.

So... - I love it.

- And really all this all happened because of my connection with professional wrestling.

That's where it all started.

People calling and interviewing and meeting people, and then an article and then the book.

And here we are.

So thank you, professional wrestling.

- I've also heard people refer to you as the Hillbilly Donnie Brasco.

- Yes, ma'am.

- So that has, I think, probably double significance for you because I know people think of you as, if not equally famous, the next famous to Donnie Brasco.

- Boy, I don't know, y'all can say it, but not me.

Matter of fact, I am friends.

He is my mentor.

- I was gonna say he actually trained you, right?

- Yes.

Joe Pistone.

He texted me one day, not too long ago, he goes, "How did you land Joe Rogan?"

And I'm like, "I don't know, you know."

But I told him, I said, "You're gonna hear somebody say Hillbilly Donnie Brasco."

I said, "Boss man," that's what I call him, I'm like, "Boss man, I want you to know, I would've never taken your title, even say anything."

I said, "But they're putting it on me.

I'm gonna try to do it right."

He hit me back with the cool face emoji, you know, the sunglasses and said, "I like it."

And I'm like, "Well, if you like it, then it's okay."

- What's the best piece of advice he gave you?

- Oh, there's tons.

I don't know.

Well, you know what?

He helped create the Safeguard unit, which was set up for psychological assessments and wellbeing of the undercover.

There's no case important enough for you to lose your family, yourself, take care of yourself.

I'll say that's probably the biggest right off the top of my head.

- When you look at the work that you did with all of these groups and all the cells that you probably have yet to penetrate even as a unit, do you feel like you made a difference?

- Sure.

The whole team did.

It's not just me.

It takes a village, case teams.

And I get it, a lot of times, if you look and say, "Hey, the war on drugs, does it ever really end?"

Nah, probably not.

It changes.

It's just whatever criminal stuff can come in and makes money.

It's a supply and demand thing.

But can I dry up this county?

If we take a big leap, can we dry up this county for three months and save a lot of lives that way?

Yeah.

So I kind of look at it like that.

I feel like I have, I mean, I'm proud of what I did.

I'm satisfied.

That's really what made me retire.

I was sitting down somewhere having dinner, maybe an adult beverage, and I don't know what we were talking about, but it hit me.

I was like, "I'm satisfied with my career."

And that's when I started shifting my mindset going, "Maybe it's time to retire," and I did.

- Anything you miss?

- Flying armed.

That's number one.

'Cause as a federal agent, you can fly armed.

I don't know.

I scratch the itch by still teaching and being around law enforcement.

- [Alison] Yeah.

- I kind of miss being called out in the middle of the night to go interview the craziest of the crazies, the most evil of the evils or the nicest of the nice, smart, rich, tall, skinny.

I love it.

I miss that.

But I do get to fill that gap by going out and doing stuff like this and meeting people and still connect with people.

(gentle upbeat music) - Whether he's undercover with the Outlaws or navigating retirement, it's clear that relationship building has been key to Scott's success.

How do you, or how did you separate your personal mission and your professional charge with the reality of your job?

Did it cross the line ever?

- No, I mean, not in a way of, like, "Oh, Scott's going to the dark side."

- Right.

- "We're gonna lose you."

You know, not like that.

- But you clearly made, I mean, significant and authentic relationships with the people that you were essentially deceiving.

- Especially on that case.

- Yeah.

- Again, I'm a biker.

That's kind of my culture.

Those relationships that I built, most of 'em were real.

And some of 'em are still real to this day.

It's almost like, I don't wanna say it's a game, but, like, if you look at like the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon, I mean, one's trying to catch the other one, the other one's trying to get away.

And then at the end of the day, you clock out, and you come back in, and it's not always like that.

But for me in my history of doing undercovers, there's been numerous cases where once the case is done, I'm still getting called on my undercover phone, 'cause I hadn't shut it off yet.

And they're like, "Hey, easy boy, I know you just doing your job.

I love you, brother."

I'll be like, "I love you too, man.

You know, now where we're here, we're here right now.

You're caught, you're being charged.

Let's work it from here."

- Did that shock you that they could separate your job from your person?

- I would say no because for me, in my experience in my career, for me it's about connecting with people.

- [Alison] Yeah.

- And I'm not talking about somebody who has it nice in life and is in a Fortune 500 or 100 company and you go meet 'em over a glass of wine and you say, "I'd like to get some information from you."

"Why would I like to give it to you?"

I'm talking about somebody who has hated law enforcement their entire life, and a lot of 'em for good reason.

They've had some very bad experiences.

You meet 'em and they walk away from the meeting going, "You know, for a cop, you're not that bad," Or "I didn't know there were cops like you."

That kind of thing.

It's just about connecting with people.

So yeah, it's worked for me in my history, but I will say, like, if it's a case where it's a pedophile hiring me to kill the kid he molested, there's not really any bond in there.

- Yeah.

- You're hiring me to kill somebody.

The white supremacy, the extremism stuff, I'm not really bonding with those people.

But you're in work mode.

You still gotta make a connection and be proactive and find out are they really gonna do something bad?

Are they doing anything that's against the law, or are they not?

If they're not, give back to the case team and say, "I'm done.

They're not doing anything."

- You saw so much darkness in our country.

- [Scott] Mm-hmm.

- Where do you see light?

- Well, I'm a believer, first of all, I am a glass-is-half-full guy.

I'm an optimist.

And I've said this, I say it in the book, I say it in pretty much every interview I've done.

But you just have to understand that there's evil people on the planet that wanna do evil things to good people.

I don't want you to walk around in fear and be scared all the time, but just to understand that and then not be on guard necessarily.

But then we can kind of start having a conversation about things that I've seen, or my peers or my mentors or people I've been blessed to mentor have seen, first responders, military.

But I'm an optimist.

If I wasn't, seeing the stuff that we see, or, like, my peers see, or just uniform patrol.

I mean, how often do you show up as a uniform cop and everybody's happy to see you?

How often do you show up and you're seeing people at their worst?

So if I wasn't the glass-is-half-full guy, I probably wouldn't have lasted long at all.

- Well, I'm an optimist too, and I'm really glad that you did what you did and that you continue to be a light.

So thank you, Scott.

- Thank you.

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