The leader of neo-Nazi ‘murder cult’ planned to hand poisoned sweets to Jewish children in New York City as part of a sadistic terror attack, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York has said.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national who has various nicknames including ‘Commander Butcher,’ has been charged in a federal grand jury indictment with plotting to have a recruit dress up as Santa Claus and carry out a ‘mass casualty event’ on New Year’s Eve 2023.
The 21-year-old is accused of being the leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, which the US Department of Justice says is an international extremist group that promotes violence against racial minorities, Jews and other so-called ‘undesirables’.
A federal grand jury charged Chkhikvishvili with soliciting hate crimes and a mass casualty attack in Brooklyn.
US prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili began devising the terror plot in November 2023, but it never came to fruition after he unwittingly recruited an undercover agent.
His plan involved a cult member dressing up as Santa and delivering sweets ‘laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn’.
Chkhikvishvili ‘drafted step-by-step instructions to carry out the scheme’ and provided the undercover officer with ‘detailed manuals on creating and mixing lethal poisons and gases,’ the US Department for Justice (DoJ) said in a statement.
Since September 2021, Chkhikvishvili had been distributing a manifesto titled the ‘Hater’s Handbook’ in which he states that he has ‘murdered for the white race’ and encourages others to do the same.
‘For example, and among other things, the handbook encourages its readers to commit school shootings and to use children to perpetrate suicide bombings and other mass killings targeting racial minorities,’ the DoJ said.
‘The document describes methods and strategies for committing mass “terror attacks,” including, for example, using vehicles to target “large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations and parades” and “pedestrian congested streets.”
‘It specifically encourages committing attacks within the US.’
Chkhikvishvili traveled to New York City at least twice in 2022 and stayed with his paternal grandmother in Brooklyn, officials said.
He was arrested after Interpol issued a warrant. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The cult has many names; it is also known as Maniacs: Cult of Killing, MKY, MMC and MKU. The group is believed to have members in the US and abroad.
These members share a common goal of challenging social order and governments through terrorism to promote fear and chaos.
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