The leader of an Eastern European neo-Nazi group has been charged with plotting to have a follower dress up as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned candy to Jewish children in New York City.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 21-year-old man from the Republic of Georgia, was arrested pursuant to an Interpol publication on wanted persons in Moldova on July 6.
On Tuesday, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted him on four counts, including soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence, following an investigation by the FBI and New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“As alleged, the defendant attempted to recruit others to commit violent attacks and murders to further his neo-Nazi ideologies,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.
‘Their goal was to spread hatred, fear and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson and even the poisoning of children, in order to harm racial minorities, the Jewish community and the homeless.’
An Eastern European neo-Nazi leader has been charged with plotting to have a follower dress up as Santa Claus to hand out poisoned sweets to Jewish children.
Prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili, known by the nicknames Michael, Mishka, Commander Butcher and Butcher, leads the Maniacs Murder Cult, an international extremist group based in Russia and Ukraine.
The group adheres to a “neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology” and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems “undesirable.” Federal prosecutors say.
Their goal is to disrupt social order and governments through terrorism and violent acts that promote fear and chaos.
The group has since spread to the United States and Chkhikvishvili was arrested after unwittingly helping to recruit an undercover FBI agent.
The undercover agent asked the cult leader in September 2024 if there was an application process to join the group. According to a criminal complaint.
Chkhikvishvili reportedly replied: “Well, yes, we ask people to film brutal beatings, arson, explosions or murders.”
He went on to advise that “poisoning and arson are the best options for murder” and suggested that a “larger mass murder in the United States” be considered.
Chkhikvishvili also suggested that the undercover police officer chose “low-class targets.”
Michail Chkhikvishvili unwittingly sent clues to an undercover agent to carry out the plan.
In November, Chkhikvishvili allegedly began planning a “mass-fatality event in New York City on New Year’s Eve.”
“The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn,” prosecutors said.
He then wrote step-by-step instructions on how to carry out the plan, writing in a Nov. 2 letter that the undercover agent was to use delivery services or pay cash to buy the poisons and chocolates.
“After handing out poisoned candy to many racial minorities and traitors, just get into a taxi, pay to go somewhere where you will have alternative clothes… and burn Santa’s clothes and equipment,” Chkhikvishvili allegedly wrote in the message.
Along with the message, prosecutors say the neo-Nazi provided the undercover officer with manuals on how to create and mix poisons and gases.
He also allegedly told the undercover agent to specifically target the Jewish community, noting that “Jews are literally everywhere” in Brooklyn.
He advised the undercover agent to save some clothes and burn the Santa suit after handing out the poisoned candy.
Chkhikvishvili appears to have had high hopes for the plan, intending it to be a “bigger action than Breivik,” referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in a mass shooting and bombing in 2011.
“Once you do a poison attack, I will send a message against the US government,” he allegedly wrote to the undercover agent in November while repeatedly asking for status updates.
“MMC will become bigger than Al Qaeda once it disappears.”
When New Year’s Eve passed without any hate attacks, prosecutors said he changed the plan to focus on poisoning children on “some Jewish holiday.”
Prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili leads the Maniacs Murder Cult, an international extremist group based in Russia and Ukraine.
Prosecutors also allege that since September 2021, Chkhikvishvili had distributed a manifesto titled the Hater’s Handbook, in which he claims he has “murdered for the white race” and is “ready to bring more chaos to this rotten world.”
“Our primary goal is to spread the flames of Lucifer and continue his message of ethnic cleansing, great drive or purification,” the manual said, according to the criminal complaint.
Prosecutors say the law would continue to encourage readers to commit school shootings and use children to carry out suicide bombings and other mass killings against racial minorities.
‘The document describes methods and strategies for carrying out mass ‘terrorist attacks,’ including, for example, the use of vehicles to attack ‘large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations and parades’ and ‘pedestrian-congested streets,’ they say.
“It specifically encourages the commission of attacks within the United States.”
Chkhikvishvili even allegedly told others that he committed hate crimes while living with his grandmother in Brooklyn in 2022, bragging to the leader of Feurkrieg Division, another neo-Nazi group, that he tortured and tried to kill an elderly Jewish man.
Investigators later determined that Chkhikvishvili had worked at a Brooklyn rehabilitation center and was employed by an Orthodox Jewish family to care for a deceased man.
“I got paid to torture a dying Jew,” he allegedly boasted in a message to the other neo-Nazi leader, sharing photos of the elderly man’s hospital bed.
But the feds are not charging Chkhikvishvili with the man’s death, noting that they spoke to relatives of the deceased who said he “had been ill for some time.”
Chkhikvishviliv now faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for felony solicitation, conspiracy to solicit violent crimes, distribution of information relating to the manufacture and use of explosive devices and transmission of threatening communications.
It is unclear whether he has hired an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
