Speaker 1: Thank Heaven for the dreamers. Over the past century. They
Speaker 1: have gone against the grain, flouted convention, disputed accepted truths,
Speaker 1: marched to their own drummer, and in the process set
Speaker 1: new benchmarks for human achievement. One such dreamer is computer
Speaker 1: system designer Alan Metcalf. He dared to dream the impossible.
Speaker 2: Safe world will change the world because it'll enable, for
Speaker 2: the first time for us to take the whole world
Speaker 2: economy into cyberspace.
Speaker 3: That was a commercial Allan and his teammate comparing himself
Speaker 3: to people like Martin Luther King and Neil Armstrong. So
Speaker 3: Alan clearly had a high opinion of himself. In fact,
Speaker 3: it's his god complex that may help me finally solve
Speaker 3: the mystery that I've been trying to answer since the
Speaker 3: start of this series. What happened to the forty nine
Speaker 3: million dollars of other people's money which went missing after
Speaker 3: Alan died. I'm running out of time. It's my last
Speaker 3: chance to find the missing millions in the next hour,
Speaker 3: because this is the final episode. Let's finish what we started.
Speaker 3: My investigation has taken me into the depths of Allan's past.
Speaker 3: I've looked into whether Saffold's was or ever could be viable.
Speaker 3: Then followed the money trail wherever it took me from
Speaker 3: geraldon a sleepy town in country Australia to the billionaire's
Speaker 3: playground of the Cayman Islands deep in the Caribbean Sea,
Speaker 3: and of course explored whether he himself was really dead.
Speaker 3: But there's one more possibility, and it's about to take
Speaker 3: me into the world of national and international politics, from
Speaker 3: Pauline Hansen to mega churches and Donald Trump, the former
Speaker 3: US president who at the time we're making this might
Speaker 3: very well will also be the next president of the
Speaker 3: United States.
Speaker 4: I had a guy that was a CEO stealing from
Speaker 4: my client, and he would steal money from my client,
Speaker 4: put it in his bank account, and then he would
Speaker 4: make donations to political parties. Now we have rules about
Speaker 4: how much you can donate that are capped per individual,
Speaker 4: but that's a whole other investigation is campaign financing.
Speaker 3: This is Leah Wheatolta, the ex FBI agent turned private
Speaker 3: detective who gave me advice on how to follow a
Speaker 3: money trail in episode six. Now Leah is telling me
Speaker 3: this other ways people can funnel money through political donations.
Speaker 4: Any donations if they're in the States, any donations, if
Speaker 4: you know who they donated to, you can pull those
Speaker 4: reports and like their public record with the state and
Speaker 4: so then you can run those and you can see
Speaker 4: wine item names and how much they donated.
Speaker 3: Hang on. This is the first time I've considered this.
Speaker 3: Up until this point, I've been focusing my efforts on
Speaker 3: where the vanished money might have been stashed or what
Speaker 3: Alan might have bought with it. But is it possible
Speaker 3: the forty nine million dollars that hundreds of investors entrusted
Speaker 3: to Alan might actually have been given away? I'm Alex
Speaker 3: Turner Cohen, a finance and investigative reporter from news dot com.
Speaker 3: Are you and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million?
Speaker 3: This is the final episode False Profit.
Speaker 5: I've been involved in a few not for profit groups
Speaker 5: which are in the political space, which is sort of
Speaker 5: how I have that initial connection to Alan.
Speaker 3: This is Jaimar and Covids. We've briefly heard from him before.
Speaker 3: He's a Safe Worlds investor who put ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: into the scheme. When I meet Ji in his Sydney office,
Speaker 3: he helps me understand Alan's political views because he shares.
Speaker 5: Them our group is interested in preserving our status as
Speaker 5: a constitutional monarchy.
Speaker 3: So a bit of history. The British invaded Australia two
Speaker 3: hundred years ago and today it still has the British monarch.
Speaker 3: Not everyone is happy about it. And back in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine there was a big push for Australia to
Speaker 3: become a republic. There was a national referendum on the issue.
Speaker 3: And Jai says his group, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, campaign
Speaker 3: to keep the royal family in power, and he says
Speaker 3: this group was key to winning the debate.
Speaker 5: So since then we've sort of kept that group together.
Speaker 5: There's been moments where people have still suggested change. There's
Speaker 5: been nothing that's gained any meaningful traction, but that group
Speaker 5: is still there to defend the status quo.
Speaker 3: Gai tells me. Alan was also a believer in the
Speaker 3: status quo. In fact, according to a news article from
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, one of the main reasons Alan wanted to
Speaker 3: get Safewold off the ground was to help what he
Speaker 3: described as the prominently Christian middle class. Alan was able
Speaker 3: to make quite an impression on Ji and his pro
Speaker 3: monarchy group.
Speaker 5: It was clear that his overlapping views was quite consistent
Speaker 5: with what we believe. It sort of inspired us, I guess,
Speaker 5: to have a bit of confidence in what he was proposing,
Speaker 5: and I think initially that's probably what allowed us to
Speaker 5: give him the time of day. And then from there
Speaker 5: I think, you know, we sort of learned a bit
Speaker 5: more about him as a person, but also about the platform. Ultimately,
Speaker 5: obviously the platform disappointed that's unfortunate, but initially we were
Speaker 5: interested to explore it.
Speaker 3: Jai was convinced and put a small amount of cash
Speaker 3: into Safe Worlds, but making money wasn't his main goal.
Speaker 3: He saw the tech platform as a way to prom
Speaker 3: his political ideals.
Speaker 5: My primary interest in it wasn't so much the return
Speaker 5: on that investment, although I did definitely expect and hope
Speaker 5: to see a return on it. More importantly, I wanted
Speaker 5: to support the political objectives of the system.
Speaker 3: Jai had taken a gamble on Safe Worlds, and he
Speaker 3: wasn't the only person in his group that got behind
Speaker 3: the scheme. There was someone else in the picture, someone
Speaker 3: who's kind of a big deal.
Speaker 5: So the two people who took the meeting with him
Speaker 5: there was myself and David.
Speaker 3: Flint, Professor David Flint is a well known conservative columnist
Speaker 3: now well into his seventies. Flint's always been a big
Speaker 3: supporter of Alan Metcalf and his wife Mary. He was
Speaker 3: on their advisory board and went on to launch his
Speaker 3: own Safeworld's TV channel on YouTube. The video looks quite
Speaker 3: amateur and David has a shock of white hair and
Speaker 3: a distinctive voice.
Speaker 6: Hello, I'm David Flint. I'd like to tell you about
Speaker 6: this program, Conversations with Conservatives. This is being broadcast in
Speaker 6: audio and video via safe World's tvv.
Speaker 3: David isn't just a commentator, though, he has real influence
Speaker 3: in the real world. During the twenty seventeen national vote
Speaker 3: on whether to legalize same sex marriage, Flint called on
Speaker 3: people to vote no because he said it was unconstitutional.
Speaker 6: For those who don't know me, I'm a conservative. What
Speaker 6: this means to me is that I believe, in the
Speaker 6: immortal words of the American founding fathers, that all men
Speaker 6: and women have been endowed by their creator with certain
Speaker 6: unlienable rights.
Speaker 3: Last year, Flint opposed Australia's Indigenous Voice to Parliament, which
Speaker 3: was a referendum proposing an advisory body to represent Indigenous communities.
Speaker 3: In the end, the vote was majority.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 6: I don't believe in big government, big business, big unions
Speaker 6: will make anything that monopolizes opportunity and stifle the potential
Speaker 6: of the petole. For me, Conservatives are the real conservationists.
Speaker 3: It seems like Allan himself was a fan of David's,
Speaker 3: so much so that he turned up on the Conversations
Speaker 3: with Conservatives broadcasts. In this video, they discussed presidential nominee
Speaker 3: Donald Trump ahead of the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 2: It'd have to be the most fascinating election that we've
Speaker 2: seen in a long time, would you agree?
Speaker 6: I would, And if you read the and listen to
Speaker 6: the mainstream media, you'd think the big issue was these
Speaker 6: large number of ladies who are coming forward just before
Speaker 6: the actual election. They were silent beforehand.
Speaker 2: Now, how world is it? Hangs on this that this
Speaker 2: one problem that men actually like ladies.
Speaker 3: I contact David to ask him about Alan and I
Speaker 3: Learne invested some money in Safeworlds. But he doesn't have
Speaker 3: any hard feelings about what's happened. There's no guarantee in
Speaker 3: these things. It would be foolish to believe that there is,
Speaker 3: he tells me over a phone Call. David says he
Speaker 3: started the Safeworld's broadcasts to give voice to conservatives who
Speaker 3: he believes are no longer represented by the mainstream media,
Speaker 3: and while only a few hundred people watched his videos,
Speaker 3: he pulled in some big names. David managed to get
Speaker 3: Family First Senator Bob Day on the program. Part of
Speaker 3: a Christian right group loosely associated with the Pentecostal Church,
Speaker 3: Bob Day is a climate change denier. Christian Democratic Party
Speaker 3: leader Fred Nile was also a special guest on Safeworld's
Speaker 3: Conversations with Conservatives. Fred Nile is opposed to abortion and
Speaker 3: once said homosexuality was a mental disorder. Another guest was
Speaker 3: Australia's richest person, Gene and Reinhart in August twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6: And our special guest today is missus gim Reinhart speaking
Speaker 6: to us from Rio de Janeiro from the Olympic Games.
Speaker 8: Hello, missus Rehinhant, David, it's lovely to hear of you.
Speaker 8: So should I start with my Thatcher quotes? She said
Speaker 8: the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out
Speaker 8: of other people's money. She also said, if you set
Speaker 8: out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise
Speaker 8: on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
Speaker 3: Gina Reinhardt inherited a mining empire from her dad, Lang Hancock,
Speaker 3: a man who once said that all Indigenous Australians should
Speaker 3: be sterilized. It isn't his daughter Gina's view, but she's
Speaker 3: been criticized for never publicly condemning his opinion. She's also
Speaker 3: slammed what she calls climate change propaganda and has repeatedly
Speaker 3: called for tax cuts and help for business. Gina Rehinhart
Speaker 3: never got back to me when I asked her about
Speaker 3: her connection to Safe Worlds. Someone else who declined to
Speaker 3: talk to me about their appearance on Safeworld's TV was
Speaker 3: Australia's most controversial politician, Pauline Hansen. Among other controversial opinions,
Speaker 3: Pauline has called for a ban on the burker and
Speaker 3: claimed her lull certified food funds terrorism. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: the year of her Safeworld's TV appearance, she called for
Speaker 3: an outright stop on Muslim immigration to Australia.
Speaker 9: David Islam is for fortunate to be a religiou, yet
Speaker 9: many people who are Muslims themselves say it is a
Speaker 9: political ideology now what I'm saying is we need to
Speaker 9: have a royal commission or an inquiry into is it
Speaker 9: truly a religion or is a political ideology?
Speaker 3: To me, what she's saying there is ludicrous and offensive.
Speaker 3: But it was broadcast through Safeworld's TV. So did Alan
Speaker 3: condone it and did he ben his investors' money on
Speaker 3: its promotion? The answer is quite likely yes. I find
Speaker 3: a picture of Allan's son, Clayton metcalf editing this Pauline
Speaker 3: Hanson video at their Gold Coast studios. Safewood's also posted
Speaker 3: on social media about a town hall Pauline Hanson was
Speaker 3: hosting in the lead up to the twenty fifteen Queensland
Speaker 3: state election. So Allan was using his business as time,
Speaker 3: resources and money on this money I can only assume
Speaker 3: came from his investors. When I contact Pauline, she tells
Speaker 3: me her involvement with Alan and Safefood's TV was a
Speaker 3: long time ago and she'd have nothing to add. I've
Speaker 3: dug up photos which show Alan and Mary standing side
Speaker 3: by side with the controversial politician, so they at least
Speaker 3: met her. That gets me thinking about what Leah, the
Speaker 3: former FBI agent told me about political donations. Could Allan
Speaker 3: have donated to the One Nation Party? If so, did
Speaker 3: he do this using his money or his investors? Going online,
Speaker 3: I searched the federal and Queensland transparency registers on the
Speaker 3: Australian Electoral Commission and I can't find anything. Only donations
Speaker 3: over fifteen thousand dollars are publicly listed. So that's not
Speaker 3: a definite no, It's just that there's no evidence, but
Speaker 3: there is evidence of Allan's spending money on politics indirectly.
Speaker 10: I am currently in Baltimore. On Monday, we will be
Speaker 10: in Philadelphia. I expect that we will be heading home
Speaker 10: sometime during the week of December ten.
Speaker 3: This is the AI program we've been using throughout the
Speaker 3: series to recreate Alan's voice, reading out emails he's sent
Speaker 3: while he was alive and which we've got hold of.
Speaker 3: During this investigation, Alan was constantly traveling between Australia and
Speaker 3: the US for business meetings and to run Safe World's
Speaker 3: US office. In twenty twelve, Allan was in the for
Speaker 3: most of the time, jetting to Washington, DC, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: and Texas. Twenty twelve was also a presidential election year,
Speaker 3: But back home in Australia, investors were growing concerned, like
Speaker 3: Mike Brooke, the cybersecurity expert and blogger whose parents got
Speaker 3: sucked into the scheme. Mike says, Alan was doing all
Speaker 3: this traveling at a time when work on developing SAFELDS
Speaker 3: itself seemed to have ground to a halt.
Speaker 11: It just doesn't make sense to have been able to
Speaker 11: spend that much money when development stopped on the product.
Speaker 11: The only place that could have been going was into
Speaker 11: the travel, the worldwide travel that he was doing to
Speaker 11: apparently sell his platform. Having this guy traveling around the
Speaker 11: world trying to sell and build interest in this product,
Speaker 11: That's not how you build interest in a product. You
Speaker 11: have to be out with marketing and media. It just
Speaker 11: seemed like it was a way to spend the last
Speaker 11: years of your life actually out enjoying it.
Speaker 3: David Richardson is the Channel nine journalist from episode one
Speaker 3: who came across Safeworld's TV a decade ago because his
Speaker 3: mates were looking to invest.
Speaker 12: One of the things that bothered us certainly early on
Speaker 12: in the piece was the number of times he was
Speaker 12: flying back between America and Australia and American Australia, and
Speaker 12: you know you could guarantee that he was flying. He
Speaker 12: wasn't flying cattle class, so you know you're looking at
Speaker 12: a fairly not cheap flights. I'd be sitting there with
Speaker 12: my MD mates saying, what is he actually how much
Speaker 12: money is he taking out of these investments, you know,
Speaker 12: flying across the Pacific backwards and forwards and staying in
Speaker 12: the hotels, And clearly he's not you know, he hasn't
Speaker 12: lost any kilos, so he's clearly eating pretty well. So
Speaker 12: I kept thinking to myself, there's money vanishing here for sure.
Speaker 3: Then there's Chris Lych. He's now retired in Perth, but
Speaker 3: he used to work at a mind site near Geraldton
Speaker 3: where he was introduced to Safe Worlds. Like hundreds of
Speaker 3: others in Western Australia, Chris, his wife and son took
Speaker 3: a leap of faith and invested twenty thousand dollars into
Speaker 3: the scheme.
Speaker 13: I would say a lot of it was probably spent
Speaker 13: by Alan Big noting himself while he was jet setting
Speaker 13: all over the world.
Speaker 3: Chris is a former paramedic and nurse. He contacted me
Speaker 3: through our tip inbox after the first few episodes of
Speaker 3: this podcast went live.
Speaker 13: The other, probably most obvious direction where the money could
Speaker 13: have gone was the evangelical stuff and the promotion of
Speaker 13: the GOP and the upcoming Trump candidacy.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, what's this got to do with Trump?
Speaker 3: I ask him. Chris read all of Alan's emails to
Speaker 3: shareholders closely, and he still remembers some of them because
Speaker 3: they made alarm belt ring for him.
Speaker 13: I got the impression the evangelical stuff started getting preached
Speaker 13: a little bit more, and I thought, Oh, where's this
Speaker 13: money going in? And I just sort no, I think
Speaker 13: this has going down some kind of an evangelical, ultra
Speaker 13: far right wing sort of slot, and I didn't want
Speaker 13: anything to do with it. And that really really sort
Speaker 13: of started making me question, what the hell have I
Speaker 13: gotten into here.
Speaker 3: Chris's family stopped investing.
Speaker 13: We're definitely not conservative or right wing in any way.
Speaker 13: We're more progressive. I suppose we don't believe in any of
Speaker 13: the old conservative sort of politics at all, so we
Speaker 13: would have probably run a mile from it.
Speaker 3: So I go back to those old emails Allan sent
Speaker 3: to his investors. This time I look for references to
Speaker 3: US politics, and I find them. Alan was a devoted
Speaker 3: follower of x US President Donald Trump. Here's Ai Allan
Speaker 3: reading out one of these emails.
Speaker 10: The election of Donald Trump is good news for public
Speaker 10: listing and IPO in America. Financial investment regulations have seriously
Speaker 10: shackled businesses in the US and made stock market listing
Speaker 10: less attractive under President Obama.
Speaker 3: An IPO means initial public offering, which is financial jargon
Speaker 3: for a company floating on the stock market.
Speaker 10: I am therefore very bullish about the US economy in
Speaker 10: the next twelve months. After that depends on what Trump
Speaker 10: does in twenty seventeen. A lot can and should happen.
Speaker 10: Best wishes for a great twenty seventeen for us all
Speaker 10: we have certainly earned it.
Speaker 3: Twenty seventeen was Trump's first year as US president, but
Speaker 3: as we know, twenty seventeen was not a great year
Speaker 3: for Alan. That was the year he died, and also
Speaker 3: the year police raided Safe Worlds and the company got
Speaker 3: in trouble from the Australian regulator. Just a month before
Speaker 3: his death, though, Alan was still busy trying to make
Speaker 3: his grand dreams for Safe Worlds a reality, and it
Speaker 3: seems that Trump was part of how we hoped to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 14: The purpose of this video is to advise key decision
Speaker 14: makers in the Trump administration that I made the ESSENTI
Speaker 14: shall break through discovery of how human intelligence and therefore
Speaker 14: true AI works in nineteen ninety nine. If America embraces
Speaker 14: this technology, the American dream of life, liberty, and the
Speaker 14: pursuit of personal happiness can be given to the world
Speaker 14: to enshrine the American dream forever.
Speaker 3: This seems wildly ambitious and maybe egotistical, the idea that
Speaker 3: this slightly crappy YouTube video would influence the White House
Speaker 3: and bring happiness to the entire world. But being Allan,
Speaker 3: he wasn't just going to sit idly by and hope
Speaker 3: that Trump would stumble across his work. He was actively
Speaker 3: trying to strike a deal. This is Ai Allan again,
Speaker 3: reading out an email he's sent to investors in January
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen.
Speaker 10: We are talking with Phonoscope in Houston, Texas about a
Speaker 10: joint approach to the Trump administration on privacy and security.
Speaker 3: Phonoscope is a major telco company in Houston, one of
Speaker 3: the biggest cities in Texas, which is a very Republican
Speaker 3: US state, and the Republicans of the Party of Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: We reached the basis of an agreement with Phonoscope. Basically,
Speaker 10: the deal will involve Phonoscope becoming our super distributor for
Speaker 10: the US. They will provide pre IPO and IPO funding assistance.
Speaker 10: The big plus with our vision is that we are
Speaker 10: now dealing with the owner. He now shares our vision.
Speaker 3: Phonoscope and its chief exec Lee Cook, never answered my questions,
Speaker 3: so I keep looking. Phonoscopes made a few minor political
Speaker 3: donations to Texas Republican candidates over the years, and Lee
Speaker 3: Cook has personally donated more than eighty five thousand into
Speaker 3: Republican causes. I keep going back through Allen's emails and
Speaker 3: uncover that Phonoscope had a relationship with Safeworlds going back
Speaker 3: five years.
Speaker 10: Phonoscope is working with us to establish the Tea Party
Speaker 10: Network in America. They have agreed to provide their large
Speaker 10: meeting room that holds about sixty people for the inaugural
Speaker 10: meeting of the Tea Party Network in Houston on January
Speaker 10: twenty four, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is big. The Tea Party were a hand
Speaker 3: grenade thrown into US politics. Its name comes from one
Speaker 3: of the sparks that lit the American War of Independence,
Speaker 3: where British rulers were overthrown. Bizarrely, that spark was a
Speaker 3: protest against the laws on taxes. In seventeen seventy three,
Speaker 3: American patriots boarded British ships carrying tea and threw their
Speaker 3: loads into Boston Harbor. The more modern Tea Party movement
Speaker 3: spawned in two thousand and nine. They started and then
Speaker 3: fueled the baseless racist conspiracy theory that Obama was secretly
Speaker 3: a foreign born Muslim and therefore not allowed to be president.
Speaker 3: Another memorable moment for the Tea Party was when one
Speaker 3: of the and it's stay endorsed set in a debate
Speaker 3: about abortion. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body
Speaker 3: has ways to shut that whole thing down, and the
Speaker 3: Tea Party had an impact.
Speaker 15: It may be the biggest political movement in years, Thousands
Speaker 15: upon thousands of Americans gathering in cities across the country,
Speaker 15: inventing their anger and demanding change. It is, of course,
Speaker 15: the Tea Party, and while it may be growing, it's
Speaker 15: still not exactly clear who they are or what impact
Speaker 15: they'll have on the midterm elections.
Speaker 16: Tea Party supporters were once considered to be on the
Speaker 16: fringe of the Republican Party, but now the group may
Speaker 16: be driving the force in the midterm elections. According to
Speaker 16: a Bloomberg national poll, thirty three percent of likely voters
Speaker 16: are aligned with the Tea Party.
Speaker 17: I think it's gonna be the best political story to
Speaker 17: watch in the coming year.
Speaker 18: There's a lot of energy and it's really.
Speaker 19: Remarkable in some polls, I'm not sure you should trust them,
Speaker 19: say more people identifying themselves as Tea Party people than
Speaker 19: Republican issue.
Speaker 1: The media got this one hundred percent wrong, right.
Speaker 11: This is not miners versus Tea Party. The Tea Party
Speaker 11: has taken over the entire Republican Ay don't you agree?
Speaker 3: And does that matter to this story? Well, yes, because
Speaker 3: Alan Metcalf claimed he was there at the center of
Speaker 3: it all, going to these Tea Party meetings along with
Speaker 3: his technology. Alan told investors that Safefolds and Phonoscope.
Speaker 10: Would provide assistance to the American Tea Party network. Across America.
Speaker 10: About fifty Tea Party groups have indicated their interest to
Speaker 10: start building their community channels as soon as they get
Speaker 10: the software. Some of the groups will lead us into
Speaker 10: other groups. At this point, I believe we have most
Speaker 10: of the key groups representing the Tea Party in America.
Speaker 3: Here's another of Allan's emails.
Speaker 10: Tomorrow I fly to Michigan for a week of talks
Speaker 10: with the Michigan Tea Party movement about their interest in
Speaker 10: using Safe World's TV to provide a local information service
Speaker 10: about the Tea Party throughout the state of Michigan.
Speaker 3: Allan was also editing videos of Sarah Palin for the
Speaker 3: Safe World's channel. She's a Republican presidential nominee and was
Speaker 3: called one of the figureheads of the Tea Party movement,
Speaker 3: and he did the same with Mike Pence, who went
Speaker 3: on to become Trump's vice president. There's also a photo
Speaker 3: of Alan in Dallas next to John Tweedle, a Texas
Speaker 3: Tea Party leader. He also claimed he was in discussions
Speaker 3: with a conservative think tank called the Atlas Network in Washington,
Speaker 3: DC about another possible Safe Worlds deal. The Atlas Network
Speaker 3: has since been exposed as receiving funding from the Koch Brothers,
Speaker 3: who were one of the biggest drivers behind the Tea
Speaker 3: Party movement. Alan also claimed he met Ron Paul on
Speaker 3: his travels, a hardcore right wing politician from Texas who's
Speaker 3: tried to run as president three times for the Republicans.
Speaker 3: Ron Paul is so conservative that he refuses to travel
Speaker 3: alone with a woman unless it's his wife.
Speaker 20: Supporters of Congressman Ron Paul back in December two thousand
Speaker 20: and seven, celebrating the two hundred and thirty fourth anniversary
Speaker 20: of the Boston Tea Party with rallies across the nation
Speaker 20: and an online money bomb that raised millions of dollars
Speaker 20: for Ron Paul's presidential bid in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 16: Rod Paul, Ron Paul, the guy pulled in six million
Speaker 16: dollars yesterday, probably the largest single day political fundraising total
Speaker 16: in US history.
Speaker 21: Who's the father of the Tea Party? It's Ron Paul.
Speaker 21: This is the age of Ron Paul.
Speaker 3: I contact Ron Paul to ask if he'd ever met Allan.
Speaker 3: He never responds. I know Allan was prepared to promote
Speaker 3: the views of those he agreed with, and probably spent
Speaker 3: Safe World's money to do it. I know he was
Speaker 3: or wanted to be involved in Tea Party politics, which
Speaker 3: helped reshape the US Republican Party, ultimately paving the way
Speaker 3: for Trump, Who's standing for re election this November, is
Speaker 3: it a leap to think Allan might have spent more
Speaker 3: of his investors' money on political donations to Ron Paul's campaign,
Speaker 3: or maybe even on Trump's. Like Australia, the US has
Speaker 3: a register of political donations. I check and there wasn't
Speaker 3: Alan Metcalf from Philadelphia who donated to political movements. But
Speaker 3: he voted for the Democrat Party and was an architect.
Speaker 3: So an Alan Metcalff, but not the Allan Metcalf. It
Speaker 3: feels like another dead end. Then I wonder, am I
Speaker 3: missing something? Are all political donations in the US really searchable?
Speaker 3: And it turns out no, they're not. This is where
Speaker 3: this story gets really shady. There's this phenomenon known as
Speaker 3: dark money.
Speaker 18: People can contribute money to the political system without disclosing
Speaker 18: who they are, and so that's dark money. There are
Speaker 18: a lot of people who would like politicians to do
Speaker 18: things that are not popular, that are not necessarily in
Speaker 18: the public's interest, and they don't want to be seen.
Speaker 18: So it's important to know who's helping people get away
Speaker 18: because they are probably going to owe those people a favor.
Speaker 3: This is Russ Choma, an investigative reporter from US publication
Speaker 3: Mother Jones based in Washington, DC. He speaks to me
Speaker 3: on a video call after he's put his kids to bed,
Speaker 3: lifting the lid on the sordid underbelly of American political donations.
Speaker 18: Corporations are allowed to give an unlimited amount of money
Speaker 18: to these groups called super PACs, and immediately we had
Speaker 18: the influx of these sort of anonymous corporations giving money
Speaker 18: to the superPAC. It would just be a corporation set
Speaker 18: up at a PO box in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 18: and all of a sudden, this corporation, which hadn't existed
Speaker 18: three weeks before, had half a million dollars and it
Speaker 18: was now free to spend it on the election. Another
Speaker 18: route that quickly became obvious that people who didn't want
Speaker 18: their identities closed was the use of nonprofits. When you
Speaker 18: donate to a nonprofit of any kind in the United States,
Speaker 18: you're allowed to be anonymous with your donations.
Speaker 3: Dark money has become huge in recent years. In the
Speaker 3: two years leading up to the twenty twelve US election,
Speaker 3: two billion dollars of dark money was spent mainly on
Speaker 3: TV and online at I know Alan Metcalf could be
Speaker 3: business savvy when it mattered, so I asked us whether
Speaker 3: it would be possible for an Australian to try something
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 18: The US law is very very clear you must be
Speaker 18: a US citizen or a Green card holder to donate money.
Speaker 18: But again we come back to this problem where if
Speaker 18: you can donate money without revealing your identity, who knows
Speaker 18: if you're American. And of course, of course there's money
Speaker 18: coming from overseas, we have no idea if it's coming
Speaker 18: from Australia, if it's coming from Russia, if it's coming
Speaker 18: from elsewhere. So yeah, it is, I mean, it is
Speaker 18: definitely a concern.
Speaker 3: What do you remember about the Tea Party's ability to
Speaker 3: raise dark money?
Speaker 18: The Tea Party of one of the first examples of
Speaker 18: dark money where money was coming into the system and
Speaker 18: we didn't know why, and it was having powerful influence.
Speaker 18: But the powerful influence they had was extremely disruptive and
Speaker 18: really did change in a lot of ways the tone
Speaker 18: of where the country was going. And I think it
Speaker 18: was a precursor to a lot of the issues that
Speaker 18: we currently have.
Speaker 3: Ron Paul had his own super pack called Endorsed Liberty,
Speaker 3: and I find a picture online from twenty twelve showing
Speaker 3: Alan at a convention hosted by another superpack called Freedom Works,
Speaker 3: which was itself linked to the Tea Party. Alan was
Speaker 3: photographed seated at a long table along with several other attendees.
Speaker 3: Here's one of the campaign's Freedom Works spent its money.
Speaker 22: On influential conservative advocacy group in super pac Freedom Works
Speaker 22: is under internal investigation. Among topics of the inquiry a
Speaker 22: video produced under supervision of Freedom Works featuring a scene
Speaker 22: of simulated sex with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 22: Two female interns were asked to act out a sex scene.
Speaker 22: Most bizarrely, the scene itself apparently depicts an intern wearing
Speaker 22: a panda suit simulating oral sex on another intern wearing
Speaker 22: a Hillary Clinton mask.
Speaker 3: Freedom Works managed to raise twenty three million dollars the
Speaker 3: year Allan attended the event ahead of the twenty twelve
Speaker 3: US election. With all that money, it was hailed as
Speaker 3: a major factor in turning Tea Party protesters into a
Speaker 3: national political force. I ask the leaders of Freedom Works
Speaker 3: if they ever worked with Alan. Frustratingly, they never respond,
Speaker 3: and Freedom Works shut down earlier this year in May
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. It's another dead end, but not all
Speaker 3: hope is lost. When I update Russ the American political
Speaker 3: reporter where I'm ating my investigation. He tells me something else.
Speaker 18: A lot of the money involved with American politics is
Speaker 18: a scam, which is probably a particular just to you
Speaker 18: guys as well, A very very common thing in American
Speaker 18: politics is they find someone who is rather naive, who
Speaker 18: has a lot of money, who believes that if they
Speaker 18: donate money, they'll get something, and then the money just
Speaker 18: gets pocketed. We call these things scam packs. And the
Speaker 18: hallmark of a scam pack is it raises, say a
Speaker 18: million dollars saying that they are going to advocate for
Speaker 18: the rights of elderly veterans, and the reason million dollars.
Speaker 18: At the end of the day, they'll spend three thousand
Speaker 18: dollars on supporting a political candidate. And it's just basically
Speaker 18: a way to make money disappear. The people who run
Speaker 18: these packs raise money and then just buy themselves a
Speaker 18: fancy car or a house or something like that. There
Speaker 18: is a distinct possibility that he was being scammed by
Speaker 18: people who were not being honest themselves.
Speaker 3: In the case of Allan metcalf, Russ thinks it's entirely possible,
Speaker 3: and I think so too. There would be a certain
Speaker 3: poetic justice to it that Alan might have been conned
Speaker 3: by another con artist. But beyond what I've done, it's
Speaker 3: hard to know how I can look further into this.
Speaker 3: And then Leo we TLTA, the ex FBI agent who's
Speaker 3: been guiding me, comes up with a lead.
Speaker 4: One other thought is that he was very religious. I
Speaker 4: would be interested to see did he give money to
Speaker 4: charity or to his church or anything like that, because
Speaker 4: that will typically move you up in the ranks of
Speaker 4: an organization like that as well. So it kind of
Speaker 4: becomes like a good way to hope money.
Speaker 3: And several shareholders also say this might be something worth
Speaker 3: looking at.
Speaker 13: His religiosity was becoming more and more profound. I think
Speaker 13: he was probably getting more comfortable with it.
Speaker 17: I think it maybe has gone into the church as
Speaker 17: far as if Allan donated a lot of money to
Speaker 17: a church or a religious organization. Now that I think
Speaker 17: about it, it's quite possible because he was a man
Speaker 17: of faith.
Speaker 3: So I go back to the beginning to Alan's funeral.
Speaker 3: I tried contacting the bishop who led his church service,
Speaker 3: Barry Cunnington.
Speaker 23: Alan was way above politics. Alan introduced me to safe
Speaker 23: Well's television and for that time eternally grateful. Alan is
Speaker 23: carrying a great gift, a gift that can bless the world,
Speaker 23: and he's left that gift behind.
Speaker 3: Bishop Barry, who read that out as his eulogy to Alan,
Speaker 3: is now a retired senior minister from the Tent of Promise.
Speaker 3: It's a church in the Lockyer Valley outside Brisbane. Bishop
Speaker 3: Barry was on the Safe World's advisory board, but he
Speaker 3: claimed he never put any money into the Safe World's project.
Speaker 3: Barry's Tent of Promised Church had its status as a
Speaker 3: charity revoked because it failed to lodge financial reports two
Speaker 3: years in a row, so I can't check its donation history,
Speaker 3: though the bishop did tell me he never received a
Speaker 3: donation from Allan or Safeworlds. We communicate over email. Here's
Speaker 3: a voice actor reading out his words for your information.
Speaker 7: I first met mister Allan Metcalf through a friend who
Speaker 7: introduced us at a church in Tweedhead's, New South Wales,
Speaker 7: which I was pastoring. Mister Metcalf wanted to meet me
Speaker 7: because he needed pastoral help. At that time. I also
Speaker 7: met his wife, Mary Metcalf. I discovered that he and
Speaker 7: his wife were in need of personal ministry support. I
Speaker 7: had no prior knowledge of the Safe World's business venture
Speaker 7: or the status of the business. Soon after that early
Speaker 7: time of meeting mister and Missus Metcalfe, I received a
Speaker 7: telephone call that Allan had passed away from heart failure,
Speaker 7: sadly a common cause of death for those under extreme stress.
Speaker 7: Mary Missus metcalf then asked me if I would be
Speaker 7: prepared to serve her and her family in taking Allan's funeral,
Speaker 7: which I did as a way of assisting her and
Speaker 7: her family through the time of her grief. While there
Speaker 7: is life, there is hope, and I'm aware that Missus
Speaker 7: Mary Metcalfe is still occupied looking for a buyer. Safe
Speaker 7: Worlds is a startup company and those investing were well
Speaker 7: aware of that, knowing the risks. It reminds me of
Speaker 7: a casino. Is it the builder and owner of the
Speaker 7: casino or the gambler who is at fault? I say both.
Speaker 3: That brings me up short. Is it really fair to
Speaker 3: call the investors in Safe Worlds gamblers? Yes, they lost
Speaker 3: their money, but couldn't we call them victims? Or maybe
Speaker 3: you could call them people of faith who believe what
Speaker 3: Alan told them. That they were making a smart financial decision,
Speaker 3: that Safe Worlds really would be bigger than Google. Allan
Speaker 3: was also a man of faith, but he didn't seem
Speaker 3: to be a regular church goer. Bishop Barry said they'd
Speaker 3: only met a handful of times right near the end
Speaker 3: of his life. Then I remember reading an email while
Speaker 3: I was trawling through Allen's relationship with the Tea Party.
Speaker 3: He said two church leaders were coming to these meetings
Speaker 3: in the US with him.
Speaker 10: Doctor Ron Jensen, who has extensive connections with the Christian
Speaker 10: Church and mission programs throughout America and the world, and
Speaker 10: Nancy Houston Hanson from the Capstone Legacy Foundation will attend
Speaker 10: this meeting to provide support.
Speaker 3: Nancy Hanson is the chief executive of Capstone Legacy Foundation,
Speaker 3: a national nonprofit Christian organization based in Philadelphia. I can
Speaker 3: see Nancy has made several personal donations to the Republican
Speaker 3: Party over the years. Nancy and her group, Capstone Legacy Foundation,
Speaker 3: don't respond to my questions. But then there's the other
Speaker 3: person Alan mentioned in that email who was going to
Speaker 3: these Tea Party catch ups with him, doctor Ron Jensen.
Speaker 3: We actually heard from Ron in the very first episode
Speaker 3: when he spoke at Alan's funeral.
Speaker 23: I truly believe he was a genius, and I trust
Speaker 23: the history of books will prove that.
Speaker 9: To be the case.
Speaker 3: Ron is a Safe World shareholder and he was also
Speaker 3: on the advisory board. But when I ask him, he
Speaker 3: won't give me any information about these tea party meetings.
Speaker 3: So I do some more digging. He says he's served
Speaker 3: as the president of Campus Crusade's International Schools of Theology.
Speaker 3: Campus Crusade is a megachurch originating from the US, but
Speaker 3: also with influence in Australia and elsewhere all over the world.
Speaker 3: Alan actually mentioned this church organization to Tarlie Joy Grace,
Speaker 3: the Safewold's employee I met in episode three. She saw
Speaker 3: Alan's Christian beliefs right up close.
Speaker 21: Alan was your really dodgy sort of Pendecostal. The thing
Speaker 21: with Pendecostals is they really get caught up in hype
Speaker 21: and your big fancy music and feel good talks, and
Speaker 21: the biggest thing about them is prosperity doctrines. So basically,
Speaker 21: if you give lots of money to the church, then
Speaker 21: God will make you rich. And Alan in some ways
Speaker 21: was a bit like that, except for US employees was
Speaker 21: If you give all your time to me, to my business,
Speaker 21: gold will make you rich. Alan claimed he was like
Speaker 21: best mates with the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ
Speaker 21: Bill Bright.
Speaker 3: Bill Bright was an evangelist who started Campus Crusade in
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty two in part to combat communism. He was
Speaker 3: also a staunch Republican. He died in two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: but like Alan, he lives on eternally through the web.
Speaker 3: Here he is to explain.
Speaker 19: Since eighteen forty four, I've had the privilege of bringing
Speaker 19: a lot of happiness into this world by sharing the
Speaker 19: Lord Jesus Christ the tens of thousands of students and
Speaker 19: lay people around the world. We talk about chraze to
Speaker 19: all who will listen. You have the privilege of participating
Speaker 19: with our loving Lord in the fulfillment of his great
Speaker 19: commission in this generation.
Speaker 3: The great commission is Christians carrying out Jesus's instruction to
Speaker 3: spread the Word of God around the world. Bill Wright
Speaker 3: certainly achieved this goal. His megachurch, now renamed to Crewe,
Speaker 3: has a presence in more than two hundred countries, and
Speaker 3: Alan seemed to have the same inner drive.
Speaker 10: In nineteen eighty nine, I first met the late doctor Bright,
Speaker 10: and he told me about the Great Commission and said,
Speaker 10: when you build that system, you must use it to
Speaker 10: complete the Great Commission. I have been inspired to build
Speaker 10: Safe Worlds for this purpose ever since. He said to me, Alan,
Speaker 10: if God's hand is in your work, it will happen.
Speaker 3: So essentially, Alan had an ulterior motive for his whole
Speaker 3: Safe World scheme. It wasn't just to create a new
Speaker 3: tech company, but to help spread his beliefs. I wasn't
Speaker 3: able to get anyone from the megachurch to talk to me.
Speaker 3: But if what Alan's saying is true, then we really
Speaker 3: do end up right where we started, with Alan talking
Speaker 3: about Safe World's almost divine purpose. This is Mary, his wife,
Speaker 3: speaking at his funeral, which you heard right back at
Speaker 3: the beginning of episode one.
Speaker 24: I prayed to God when I was fifteen to send
Speaker 24: me a husband who would be a kindred spirit, a
Speaker 24: visionary who would not be afraid. God answered my prayers
Speaker 24: in abundance to send me Alan Metcalf.
Speaker 3: Only from what I've found in this investigation, Alan's divine
Speaker 3: purpose seemed to get mixed up with conservative policy spreading
Speaker 3: the word of people like Pauline Hanson Gina Reinhardt, Ron Paul,
Speaker 3: the Tea Party, and Donald Trump. If so, then yeah,
Speaker 3: Alan really did do what he set out to with
Speaker 3: Safe Worlds to change the world, but not in the
Speaker 3: way anyone, including me and his hundreds of investors ever expected.
Speaker 3: At least some of their money, the missing forty nine
Speaker 3: million seems to have been spent building and promoting and
Speaker 3: traveling to help establish a technology Alan used to benefit
Speaker 3: those on the conservative extremes of Australian and US politics,
Speaker 3: And maybe that's his legacy. By helping spread their message,
Speaker 3: by working so closely with the Tea Party, by trying
Speaker 3: to work with the first Trump administration, he helped in some
Speaker 3: small way for what will happen this November, when Donald
Speaker 3: Trump will stand again for election as US President, and
Speaker 3: if he wins, will become the most powerful man on earth.
Speaker 3: Is the final resting place of the missing forty nine million.
Speaker 3: As simple and yet as crazy as that that one
Speaker 3: Australian con man helped pave the way for Trump's rise
Speaker 3: to power, or tried to.
Speaker 6: Let's see if this guy's got what he claims he's got.
Speaker 17: This could change the world. He claimed that it could
Speaker 17: be the savior of the world if it all turned out.
Speaker 2: Right for him and for us.
Speaker 17: He was very protective of it. He always said, if
Speaker 17: it got in the wrong hand, it could destroy the world.
Speaker 2: Safe world will change the world.
Speaker 10: Because it's the outsiders who changed the world, and it'll
Speaker 10: make a real and lasting difference.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen and this was the
Speaker 3: Missing forty nine million. Thanks for listening. Head to news
Speaker 3: dot com dot to read more of my reporting on
Speaker 3: this story. Do you know more? Get in touch through
Speaker 3: our dedicated tip inbox Missing Millions at news dot com
Speaker 3: dot au or contact me directly on Alex dot Turner
Speaker 3: dash Cohen at news dot com, do a you or
Speaker 3: look me up on Twitter to get my details. I'm
Speaker 3: your host, Alex Turner Cohen. Nina Young is the executive producer,
Speaker 3: sound design and editing by Tiffany Dimack. Our editorial director
Speaker 3: is Dan Box. Grant McAvaney is our legal advisor, and
Speaker 3: Kerry Warren is the editor of News dot com DODAU.
Speaker 3: And thanks to our voice actor for this episode, Hunter Wardman,