An individual from Georgia has been charged with planning a mass murder attack in New York City targeting Jews and racial minorities and urging others to follow suit.
Prosecutors say that Michail Chkhikvishvili, who goes by the name “Commander Butcher,” is in charge of the violent white nationalist group the Maniac Murder Cult.
The 20-year-old Chkhikvishvili is accused of planning a scheme to dress up as Santa Claus and give poisoned candy to kids at Jewish schools in Brooklyn and to kids of color.
It was in Moldova on July 6 that he was caught and charged with encouraging hate crimes and mass murder.
A federal indictment says that Chkhikvishvili has been spreading a manifesto called the “Hater’s Handbook” since September 2021. In it, he said that he had “murdered for the white race” and encouraged people to carry out violent mass “terror attacks” to support “ethnic cleansing,” especially in the U.S.
It is said that the handbook told people to carry out school shootings and suicide bombings and to target “large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations, and parades” and “pedestrian-congested streets.”
Chkhikvishvili is accused of asking other people, mostly through encrypted messaging apps, to commit violent hate crimes for the Maniac Murder Cult. He is said to have given people directions on how to make bombs and Molotov cocktails.
A FBI agent working secretly as a possible member of the group was one of the people he was said to have talked to.
The accusation says that the agent asked how he could join the group in September 2023. It is said that Chkhikvishvili answered that they “ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder videos on camera” and that “poisoning and arson are best options for murder.”
Chkhikvishvili is said to have given the undercover agent detailed directions on how to make poisons that would kill by taking ricin from castor beans for the candy attack.
According to the charge, Chkhikvishvili said the attack would be “bigger than Breivik.” He was referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in a mass shooting and bombing in Norway in 2011.
While visiting his grandma in Brooklyn in June 2022, Chkhikvishvili is said to have said he had done hate crimes. He is also said to have said, “I am glad I have killed” and “I will kill more” but “make others kill first.”
“As alleged, the defendant tried to get other people to carry out violent attacks and murders in line with his Neo-Nazi beliefs,” said US Attorney Breon Peace in a statement. “His goal was to spread hatred, fear, and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson and even poisoning children, to harm racial minorities, the Jewish community and homeless individuals.”
