Season 2, Episode 1: The Insider
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While there are plenty of toxic social media personalities, few are as vicious and influential as Andrew Tate. Online, he brags about being a misogynist, and his videos have been viewed billions of times. Now Tate and his brother are under investigation for human trafficking. I'm Kathleen Goltar, and this week on Crime Story, I speak with two journalists who spent four years inside Andrew Tate's manosphere. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. The following episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence. Please take care when listening. Uh, okay. So let me start with the bass. All right. Ah, what a great group of guys. Okay, so... Let me introduce you to Scott. He's 6'4", 260, likes cowboy boots and Jack Daniels. And in the summer of 2019, he wanted to join a group of white supremacists. They called themselves The Base. And Scott had already passed a crucial phone interview.
That Saturday, they reached out to me and said, Said, hey, we'd like to have you in the base. And I said, awesome, I'd love to be here. So he says, you're going to be contacted by your closest cell leader. And it turned out that the closest cell leader was a guy going by the name of the militant Buddhist, TMB. And he was in Rome, Georgia. Now we're not emailing. Now we're not texting. Now it's not a voice phone call. Now I'm actually going to meet somebody. So I drive, you know, it might be a four-hour drive. down to Rome, Georgia, and it's kind of a rural area. It's a small town. I was instructed to pull into town. They even told me what parking lot to park in. In downtown Rome, there is a statue of a Roman wolf, oddly enough, and he said, when you get there, take a picture of that Roman wolf and send it to me. So I'm driving, I keep looping on these streets, and I see the Roman wolf statue. I take a picture of it and I send it to TMB. And I end up parking on a pretty steep hill.
It is hot out. Suffocating hot August Georgian heat with a darkening sky that looks pretty ominous. Scott stands by his truck under a tangle of power lines and he spots two figures coming up the hill. And I see a guy who's probably about 6'2". About 21 years old. Probably about 220 pounds. I mean, he's not a small guy. A little frumpy, maybe. Not, like, super muscular. Pretty thick glasses on. Moppish hair pushed over the side. I don't remember him being dressed like anything crazy, but the guy walking with him, who I learn is pestilence. He's wearing a tank top of some black metal band. He has on black BDU pants that are bloused into his 8-inch combat boots, tactical boots. And his head is shaved on the sides, but his hair is long. Like it's, I mean, a ponytail probably down the middle of his back, right? So no harm, no foul. I get out. Hey, you know. So I don't even know if we shook hands. And TMB says, I need you to put your phone in airplane mode. And I'm like, okay.
And I'm expecting that, right? He pulls out this thing that I've never seen. It looks like some kind of Geiger counter. I mean, it's got lights all over it, a triangle card. And I'm looking and going, hmm. So he wands me. No big deal. I'm fine. As TMB is walking down towards the back of my truck on the driver's side, that thing he's holding his hand starts making all kinds of racket. And I can see the lights kind of jumping. And I'm like, oh, crap. I'm thinking to myself, he tells me to shut my cell phone off. And I'm like, does this thing pick up a cell signal? And I'm thinking, oh, man, this is not good. I guess now is a good time to tell you that Scott is an undercover cop. FBI Special Agent Scott Payne. He's not wearing a wire, just in case he gets patted down. But there is a GPS tracker on his truck. So when he says, not good, he means, holy shit, this is not good.
You know, you get kind of the fight or flight, you know, and I'm like, well... It's definitely picking up what's on my truck. And he's not even close yet, and it's picking it up. I don't realize I'm doing it, really, but I'm already setting my right leg back, like almost fighter stance, you know. Not like bowing up, but I'm getting ready.
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