False Prophet | The Missing 49 Million Ep 8

Thank Heaven for the dreamers. Over the past century. They have gone against the grain, flouted convention, disputed accepted truths, marched to their own drummer, and in the process set new benchmarks for human achievement. One such dreamer is computer system designer Alan Metcalf. He dared to dream the impossible.

Safe world will change the world because it'll enable, for the first time for us to take the whole world economy into cyberspace.

That was a commercial Allan and his teammate comparing himself to people like Martin Luther King and Neil Armstrong. So Alan clearly had a high opinion of himself. In fact, it's his god complex that may help me finally solve the mystery that I've been trying to answer since the start of this series. What happened to the forty nine million dollars of other people's money which went missing after Alan died. I'm running out of time. It's my last chance to find the missing millions in the next hour,

I had a guy that was a CEO stealing from my client, and he would steal money from my client, put it in his bank account, and then he would make donations to political parties. Now we have rules about how much you can donate that are capped per individual, but that's a whole other investigation is campaign financing.

This is Leah Wheatolta, the ex FBI agent turned private detective who gave me advice on how to follow a money trail in episode six. Now Leah is telling me this other ways people can funnel money through political donations.

Any donations if they're in the States, any donations, if you know who they donated to, you can pull those reports and like their public record with the state and so then you can run those and you can see wine item names and how much they donated.

Hang on. This is the first time I've considered this. Up until this point, I've been focusing my efforts on where the vanished money might have been stashed or what Alan might have bought with it. But is it possible the forty nine million dollars that hundreds of investors entrusted to Alan might actually have been given away? I'm Alex Turner Cohen, a finance and investigative reporter from news dot com. Are you and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million?

I've been involved in a few not for profit groups which are in the political space, which is sort of how I have that initial connection to Alan.

This is Jaimar and Covids. We've briefly heard from him before. He's a Safe Worlds investor who put ten thousand dollars into the scheme. When I meet Ji in his Sydney office, he helps me understand Alan's political views because he shares.

Them our group is interested in preserving our status as a constitutional monarchy.

So a bit of history. The British invaded Australia two hundred years ago and today it still has the British monarch. Not everyone is happy about it. And back in nineteen ninety nine there was a big push for Australia to become a republic. There was a national referendum on the issue. And Jai says his group, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, campaign to keep the royal family in power, and he says this group was key to winning the debate.

So since then we've sort of kept that group together. There's been moments where people have still suggested change. There's been nothing that's gained any meaningful traction, but that group is still there to defend the status quo.

Gai tells me. Alan was also a believer in the status quo. In fact, according to a news article from twenty fifteen, one of the main reasons Alan wanted to get Safewold off the ground was to help what he described as the prominently Christian middle class. Alan was able to make quite an impression on Ji and his pro monarchy group.

It was clear that his overlapping views was quite consistent with what we believe. It sort of inspired us, I guess, to have a bit of confidence in what he was proposing, and I think initially that's probably what allowed us to give him the time of day. And then from there I think, you know, we sort of learned a bit more about him as a person, but also about the platform. Ultimately, obviously the platform disappointed that's unfortunate, but initially we were interested to explore it.

Jai was convinced and put a small amount of cash into Safe Worlds, but making money wasn't his main goal. He saw the tech platform as a way to prom his political ideals.

My primary interest in it wasn't so much the return on that investment, although I did definitely expect and hope to see a return on it. More importantly, I wanted to support the political objectives of the system.

Jai had taken a gamble on Safe Worlds, and he wasn't the only person in his group that got behind the scheme. There was someone else in the picture, someone who's kind of a big deal.

So the two people who took the meeting with him there was myself and David.

Flint, Professor David Flint is a well known conservative columnist now well into his seventies. Flint's always been a big supporter of Alan Metcalf and his wife Mary. He was on their advisory board and went on to launch his own Safeworld's TV channel on YouTube. The video looks quite amateur and David has a shock of white hair and a distinctive voice.

Hello, I'm David Flint. I'd like to tell you about this program, Conversations with Conservatives. This is being broadcast in audio and video via safe World's tvv.

David isn't just a commentator, though, he has real influence in the real world. During the twenty seventeen national vote on whether to legalize same sex marriage, Flint called on people to vote no because he said it was unconstitutional.

For those who don't know me, I'm a conservative. What this means to me is that I believe, in the immortal words of the American founding fathers, that all men and women have been endowed by their creator with certain unlienable rights.

Last year, Flint opposed Australia's Indigenous Voice to Parliament, which was a referendum proposing an advisory body to represent Indigenous communities. In the end, the vote was majority.

No.

I don't believe in big government, big business, big unions will make anything that monopolizes opportunity and stifle the potential of the petole. For me, Conservatives are the real conservationists.

It seems like Allan himself was a fan of David's, so much so that he turned up on the Conversations with Conservatives broadcasts. In this video, they discussed presidential nominee Donald Trump ahead of the twenty sixteen election.

It'd have to be the most fascinating election that we've seen in a long time, would you agree?

I would, And if you read the and listen to the mainstream media, you'd think the big issue was these large number of ladies who are coming forward just before the actual election. They were silent beforehand.

Now, how world is it? Hangs on this that this one problem that men actually like ladies.

I contact David to ask him about Alan and I Learne invested some money in Safeworlds. But he doesn't have any hard feelings about what's happened. There's no guarantee in these things. It would be foolish to believe that there is, he tells me over a phone Call. David says he started the Safeworld's broadcasts to give voice to conservatives who he believes are no longer represented by the mainstream media, and while only a few hundred people watched his videos,

And our special guest today is missus gim Reinhart speaking to us from Rio de Janeiro from the Olympic Games.

Hello, missus Rehinhant, David, it's lovely to hear of you. So should I start with my Thatcher quotes? She said the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. She also said, if you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

Gina Reinhardt inherited a mining empire from her dad, Lang Hancock, a man who once said that all Indigenous Australians should be sterilized. It isn't his daughter Gina's view, but she's been criticized for never publicly condemning his opinion. She's also slammed what she calls climate change propaganda and has repeatedly called for tax cuts and help for business. Gina Rehinhart never got back to me when I asked her about

David Islam is for fortunate to be a religiou, yet many people who are Muslims themselves say it is a political ideology now what I'm saying is we need to have a royal commission or an inquiry into is it truly a religion or is a political ideology?

To me, what she's saying there is ludicrous and offensive. But it was broadcast through Safeworld's TV. So did Alan condone it and did he ben his investors' money on its promotion? The answer is quite likely yes. I find a picture of Allan's son, Clayton metcalf editing this Pauline Hanson video at their Gold Coast studios. Safewood's also posted on social media about a town hall Pauline Hanson was hosting in the lead up to the twenty fifteen Queensland

I am currently in Baltimore. On Monday, we will be in Philadelphia. I expect that we will be heading home sometime during the week of December ten.

This is the AI program we've been using throughout the series to recreate Alan's voice, reading out emails he's sent while he was alive and which we've got hold of. During this investigation, Alan was constantly traveling between Australia and the US for business meetings and to run Safe World's US office. In twenty twelve, Allan was in the for most of the time, jetting to Washington, DC, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, Pennsylvania,

It just doesn't make sense to have been able to spend that much money when development stopped on the product. The only place that could have been going was into the travel, the worldwide travel that he was doing to apparently sell his platform. Having this guy traveling around the world trying to sell and build interest in this product, That's not how you build interest in a product. You

David Richardson is the Channel nine journalist from episode one who came across Safeworld's TV a decade ago because his mates were looking to invest.

One of the things that bothered us certainly early on in the piece was the number of times he was flying back between America and Australia and American Australia, and you know you could guarantee that he was flying. He wasn't flying cattle class, so you know you're looking at

Then there's Chris Lych. He's now retired in Perth, but he used to work at a mind site near Geraldton where he was introduced to Safe Worlds. Like hundreds of others in Western Australia, Chris, his wife and son took a leap of faith and invested twenty thousand dollars into the scheme.

I would say a lot of it was probably spent by Alan Big noting himself while he was jet setting all over the world.

Chris is a former paramedic and nurse. He contacted me through our tip inbox after the first few episodes of this podcast went live.

The other, probably most obvious direction where the money could have gone was the evangelical stuff and the promotion of the GOP and the upcoming Trump candidacy.

Wait a minute, what's this got to do with Trump? I ask him. Chris read all of Alan's emails to shareholders closely, and he still remembers some of them because they made alarm belt ring for him.

I got the impression the evangelical stuff started getting preached a little bit more, and I thought, Oh, where's this money going in? And I just sort no, I think this has going down some kind of an evangelical, ultra far right wing sort of slot, and I didn't want anything to do with it. And that really really sort of started making me question, what the hell have I gotten into here.

Chris's family stopped investing.

We're definitely not conservative or right wing in any way. We're more progressive. I suppose we don't believe in any of the old conservative sort of politics at all, so we would have probably run a mile from it.

So I go back to those old emails Allan sent to his investors. This time I look for references to US politics, and I find them. Alan was a devoted follower of x US President Donald Trump. Here's Ai Allan reading out one of these emails.

The election of Donald Trump is good news for public listing and IPO in America. Financial investment regulations have seriously shackled businesses in the US and made stock market listing less attractive under President Obama.

An IPO means initial public offering, which is financial jargon for a company floating on the stock market.

I am therefore very bullish about the US economy in the next twelve months. After that depends on what Trump does in twenty seventeen. A lot can and should happen. Best wishes for a great twenty seventeen for us all we have certainly earned it.

Twenty seventeen was Trump's first year as US president, but as we know, twenty seventeen was not a great year for Alan. That was the year he died, and also the year police raided Safe Worlds and the company got in trouble from the Australian regulator. Just a month before his death, though, Alan was still busy trying to make his grand dreams for Safe Worlds a reality, and it seems that Trump was part of how we hoped to do that.

The purpose of this video is to advise key decision makers in the Trump administration that I made the ESSENTI shall break through discovery of how human intelligence and therefore true AI works in nineteen ninety nine. If America embraces this technology, the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of personal happiness can be given to the world to enshrine the American dream forever.

This seems wildly ambitious and maybe egotistical, the idea that this slightly crappy YouTube video would influence the White House and bring happiness to the entire world. But being Allan, he wasn't just going to sit idly by and hope that Trump would stumble across his work. He was actively trying to strike a deal. This is Ai Allan again, reading out an email he's sent to investors in January twenty seventeen.

We are talking with Phonoscope in Houston, Texas about a joint approach to the Trump administration on privacy and security.

Phonoscope is a major telco company in Houston, one of the biggest cities in Texas, which is a very Republican US state, and the Republicans of the Party of Donald Trump.

We reached the basis of an agreement with Phonoscope. Basically, the deal will involve Phonoscope becoming our super distributor for the US. They will provide pre IPO and IPO funding assistance. The big plus with our vision is that we are now dealing with the owner. He now shares our vision.

Phonoscope and its chief exec Lee Cook, never answered my questions, so I keep looking. Phonoscopes made a few minor political donations to Texas Republican candidates over the years, and Lee Cook has personally donated more than eighty five thousand into Republican causes. I keep going back through Allen's emails and uncover that Phonoscope had a relationship with Safeworlds going back five years.

Phonoscope is working with us to establish the Tea Party Network in America. They have agreed to provide their large meeting room that holds about sixty people for the inaugural meeting of the Tea Party Network in Houston on January twenty four, twenty thirteen.

Okay, this is big. The Tea Party were a hand grenade thrown into US politics. Its name comes from one of the sparks that lit the American War of Independence, where British rulers were overthrown. Bizarrely, that spark was a protest against the laws on taxes. In seventeen seventy three, American patriots boarded British ships carrying tea and threw their loads into Boston Harbor. The more modern Tea Party movement

It may be the biggest political movement in years, Thousands upon thousands of Americans gathering in cities across the country, inventing their anger and demanding change. It is, of course, the Tea Party, and while it may be growing, it's still not exactly clear who they are or what impact they'll have on the midterm elections.

Tea Party supporters were once considered to be on the fringe of the Republican Party, but now the group may be driving the force in the midterm elections. According to a Bloomberg national poll, thirty three percent of likely voters are aligned with the Tea Party.

I think it's gonna be the best political story to watch in the coming year.

There's a lot of energy and it's really.

Remarkable in some polls, I'm not sure you should trust them, say more people identifying themselves as Tea Party people than Republican issue.

The media got this one hundred percent wrong, right.

This is not miners versus Tea Party. The Tea Party has taken over the entire Republican Ay don't you agree?

And does that matter to this story? Well, yes, because Alan Metcalf claimed he was there at the center of it all, going to these Tea Party meetings along with his technology. Alan told investors that Safefolds and Phonoscope.

Would provide assistance to the American Tea Party network. Across America. About fifty Tea Party groups have indicated their interest to start building their community channels as soon as they get the software. Some of the groups will lead us into other groups. At this point, I believe we have most of the key groups representing the Tea Party in America.

Here's another of Allan's emails.

Tomorrow I fly to Michigan for a week of talks with the Michigan Tea Party movement about their interest in using Safe World's TV to provide a local information service about the Tea Party throughout the state of Michigan.

Allan was also editing videos of Sarah Palin for the Safe World's channel. She's a Republican presidential nominee and was called one of the figureheads of the Tea Party movement, and he did the same with Mike Pence, who went on to become Trump's vice president. There's also a photo of Alan in Dallas next to John Tweedle, a Texas Tea Party leader. He also claimed he was in discussions with a conservative think tank called the Atlas Network in Washington,

Supporters of Congressman Ron Paul back in December two thousand and seven, celebrating the two hundred and thirty fourth anniversary of the Boston Tea Party with rallies across the nation and an online money bomb that raised millions of dollars for Ron Paul's presidential bid in two thousand and eight.

Rod Paul, Ron Paul, the guy pulled in six million dollars yesterday, probably the largest single day political fundraising total in US history.

Who's the father of the Tea Party? It's Ron Paul. This is the age of Ron Paul.

I contact Ron Paul to ask if he'd ever met Allan. He never responds. I know Allan was prepared to promote the views of those he agreed with, and probably spent Safe World's money to do it. I know he was or wanted to be involved in Tea Party politics, which helped reshape the US Republican Party, ultimately paving the way for Trump, Who's standing for re election this November, is it a leap to think Allan might have spent more of his investors' money on political donations to Ron Paul's campaign,

People can contribute money to the political system without disclosing who they are, and so that's dark money. There are a lot of people who would like politicians to do things that are not popular, that are not necessarily in the public's interest, and they don't want to be seen. So it's important to know who's helping people get away because they are probably going to owe those people a favor.

This is Russ Choma, an investigative reporter from US publication Mother Jones based in Washington, DC. He speaks to me on a video call after he's put his kids to bed, lifting the lid on the sordid underbelly of American political donations.

Corporations are allowed to give an unlimited amount of money to these groups called super PACs, and immediately we had the influx of these sort of anonymous corporations giving money to the superPAC. It would just be a corporation set up at a PO box in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden, this corporation, which hadn't existed three weeks before, had half a million dollars and it

Dark money has become huge in recent years. In the two years leading up to the twenty twelve US election, two billion dollars of dark money was spent mainly on TV and online at I know Alan Metcalf could be business savvy when it mattered, so I asked us whether it would be possible for an Australian to try something like this.

The US law is very very clear you must be a US citizen or a Green card holder to donate money. But again we come back to this problem where if you can donate money without revealing your identity, who knows if you're American. And of course, of course there's money coming from overseas, we have no idea if it's coming from Australia, if it's coming from Russia, if it's coming from elsewhere. So yeah, it is, I mean, it is definitely a concern.

What do you remember about the Tea Party's ability to raise dark money?

The Tea Party of one of the first examples of dark money where money was coming into the system and we didn't know why, and it was having powerful influence. But the powerful influence they had was extremely disruptive and really did change in a lot of ways the tone of where the country was going. And I think it was a precursor to a lot of the issues that we currently have.

Ron Paul had his own super pack called Endorsed Liberty, and I find a picture online from twenty twelve showing Alan at a convention hosted by another superpack called Freedom Works, which was itself linked to the Tea Party. Alan was photographed seated at a long table along with several other attendees. Here's one of the campaign's Freedom Works spent its money.

On influential conservative advocacy group in super pac Freedom Works is under internal investigation. Among topics of the inquiry a video produced under supervision of Freedom Works featuring a scene of simulated sex with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Two female interns were asked to act out a sex scene. Most bizarrely, the scene itself apparently depicts an intern wearing a panda suit simulating oral sex on another intern wearing a Hillary Clinton mask.

Freedom Works managed to raise twenty three million dollars the year Allan attended the event ahead of the twenty twelve US election. With all that money, it was hailed as a major factor in turning Tea Party protesters into a national political force. I ask the leaders of Freedom Works if they ever worked with Alan. Frustratingly, they never respond, and Freedom Works shut down earlier this year in May twenty twenty four. It's another dead end, but not all

A lot of the money involved with American politics is a scam, which is probably a particular just to you guys as well, A very very common thing in American politics is they find someone who is rather naive, who has a lot of money, who believes that if they donate money, they'll get something, and then the money just

In the case of Allan metcalf, Russ thinks it's entirely possible, and I think so too. There would be a certain poetic justice to it that Alan might have been conned by another con artist. But beyond what I've done, it's hard to know how I can look further into this. And then Leo we TLTA, the ex FBI agent who's been guiding me, comes up with a lead.

One other thought is that he was very religious. I would be interested to see did he give money to charity or to his church or anything like that, because that will typically move you up in the ranks of an organization like that as well. So it kind of becomes like a good way to hope money.

And several shareholders also say this might be something worth looking at.

His religiosity was becoming more and more profound. I think he was probably getting more comfortable with it.

I think it maybe has gone into the church as far as if Allan donated a lot of money to a church or a religious organization. Now that I think about it, it's quite possible because he was a man of faith.

So I go back to the beginning to Alan's funeral. I tried contacting the bishop who led his church service, Barry Cunnington.

Alan was way above politics. Alan introduced me to safe Well's television and for that time eternally grateful. Alan is carrying a great gift, a gift that can bless the world, and he's left that gift behind.

Bishop Barry, who read that out as his eulogy to Alan, is now a retired senior minister from the Tent of Promise. It's a church in the Lockyer Valley outside Brisbane. Bishop Barry was on the Safe World's advisory board, but he claimed he never put any money into the Safe World's project.

I first met mister Allan Metcalf through a friend who introduced us at a church in Tweedhead's, New South Wales, which I was pastoring. Mister Metcalf wanted to meet me because he needed pastoral help. At that time. I also met his wife, Mary Metcalf. I discovered that he and his wife were in need of personal ministry support. I had no prior knowledge of the Safe World's business venture

That brings me up short. Is it really fair to call the investors in Safe Worlds gamblers? Yes, they lost their money, but couldn't we call them victims? Or maybe you could call them people of faith who believe what Alan told them. That they were making a smart financial decision, that Safe Worlds really would be bigger than Google. Allan was also a man of faith, but he didn't seem to be a regular church goer. Bishop Barry said they'd only met a handful of times right near the end

Doctor Ron Jensen, who has extensive connections with the Christian Church and mission programs throughout America and the world, and Nancy Houston Hanson from the Capstone Legacy Foundation will attend this meeting to provide support.

Nancy Hanson is the chief executive of Capstone Legacy Foundation, a national nonprofit Christian organization based in Philadelphia. I can see Nancy has made several personal donations to the Republican Party over the years. Nancy and her group, Capstone Legacy Foundation, don't respond to my questions. But then there's the other person Alan mentioned in that email who was going to these Tea Party catch ups with him, doctor Ron Jensen.

I truly believe he was a genius, and I trust the history of books will prove that.

To be the case.

Ron is a Safe World shareholder and he was also on the advisory board. But when I ask him, he won't give me any information about these tea party meetings. So I do some more digging. He says he's served as the president of Campus Crusade's International Schools of Theology. Campus Crusade is a megachurch originating from the US, but also with influence in Australia and elsewhere all over the world. Alan actually mentioned this church organization to Tarlie Joy Grace,

Alan was your really dodgy sort of Pendecostal. The thing with Pendecostals is they really get caught up in hype and your big fancy music and feel good talks, and the biggest thing about them is prosperity doctrines. So basically, if you give lots of money to the church, then God will make you rich. And Alan in some ways was a bit like that, except for US employees was If you give all your time to me, to my business,

Bill Bright was an evangelist who started Campus Crusade in nineteen fifty two in part to combat communism. He was also a staunch Republican. He died in two thousand and three, but like Alan, he lives on eternally through the web. Here he is to explain.

Since eighteen forty four, I've had the privilege of bringing a lot of happiness into this world by sharing the Lord Jesus Christ the tens of thousands of students and lay people around the world. We talk about chraze to all who will listen. You have the privilege of participating with our loving Lord in the fulfillment of his great commission in this generation.

The great commission is Christians carrying out Jesus's instruction to spread the Word of God around the world. Bill Wright certainly achieved this goal. His megachurch, now renamed to Crewe, has a presence in more than two hundred countries, and Alan seemed to have the same inner drive.

In nineteen eighty nine, I first met the late doctor Bright, and he told me about the Great Commission and said, when you build that system, you must use it to complete the Great Commission. I have been inspired to build Safe Worlds for this purpose ever since. He said to me, Alan, if God's hand is in your work, it will happen.

So essentially, Alan had an ulterior motive for his whole Safe World scheme. It wasn't just to create a new tech company, but to help spread his beliefs. I wasn't able to get anyone from the megachurch to talk to me. But if what Alan's saying is true, then we really do end up right where we started, with Alan talking about Safe World's almost divine purpose. This is Mary, his wife, speaking at his funeral, which you heard right back at the beginning of episode one.

I prayed to God when I was fifteen to send me a husband who would be a kindred spirit, a visionary who would not be afraid. God answered my prayers in abundance to send me Alan Metcalf.

Only from what I've found in this investigation, Alan's divine purpose seemed to get mixed up with conservative policy spreading the word of people like Pauline Hanson Gina Reinhardt, Ron Paul, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump. If so, then yeah, Alan really did do what he set out to with Safe Worlds to change the world, but not in the way anyone, including me and his hundreds of investors ever expected.

Let's see if this guy's got what he claims he's got.

This could change the world. He claimed that it could be the savior of the world if it all turned out.

Right for him and for us.

He was very protective of it. He always said, if it got in the wrong hand, it could destroy the world.

Safe world will change the world.

Because it's the outsiders who changed the world, and it'll make a real and lasting difference.

I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen and this was the Missing forty nine million. Thanks for listening. Head to news dot com dot to read more of my reporting on this story. Do you know more? Get in touch through our dedicated tip inbox Missing Millions at news dot com dot au or contact me directly on Alex dot Turner dash Cohen at news dot com, do a you or look me up on Twitter to get my details. I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen. Nina Young is the executive producer,