A 21-year-old Georgian man, Michail Chkhikvishvili, has been indicted on charges of soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence for allegedly plotting to have an associate dress as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned candy to Jewish children in New York City, US prosecutors said.
Chkhikvishvili, who also goes by the alias 'Commander Butcher', is accused of leading the Maniacs Murder Cult, an international extremist group that adheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and targets racial minorities and Jewish communities. The group aims to destabilise social order through terrorism, according to the US Department of Justice.
Prosecutors say the plot, devised in November, involved poisoning candy and distributing it to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn on New Year's Eve. Chkhikvishvili allegedly drafted step-by-step instructions and shared manuals on creating lethal poisons with an undercover law enforcement officer he tried to recruit.
Since September 2021, Chkhikvishvili has distributed a manifesto called the 'Hater’s Handbook', which encourages school shootings, suicide bombings, and other mass killings targeting racial minorities, the statement said. He also travelled to New York City twice in 2022, staying with his grandmother in Brooklyn.
If convicted, Chkhikvishvili faces up to 20 years in prison for solicitation of violent felonies and additional penalties for related charges. It is not known whether he has legal representation.
