A Neo Nazi leader nicknamed “Commander Butcher” tried to set off a bizarre plot to dress as Santa and hand out poison candy to minority children in New York City on New Year’s Eve, the feds allege.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, 20, a leader in the Russian and Ukranian “Maniac Murder Cult” hate group, pitched his killer Santa plot to a prospective recruit last fall, not realizing he was actually chatting with an undercover FBI agent, according to federal prosecutors.
The white nationalist also pitched murder, bombing and arson plots to the undercover agent, sending Molotov cocktail recipes and other strategies for mass destruction, according to the feds.
In one Nov. 2 missive, he offered point-by-point instructions on how to get away with the Santa poison plot, including the tip, “after giving around poisoned candies to many racial minorities and traitors, just go to taxi, pay to go somewhere, where you will have alternative clothes.”
Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national who has spent time in Brooklyn living with his grandmother, was arrested in Moldova on July 6. He was indicted in Brooklyn Federal Court of conspiracy to solicit violent felonies, distributing bomb-making instructions and other offenses, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
The feds say the suspect’s group, which goes by the initials MKY, “adheres to a Neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems ‘undesirables,’” according to a criminal complaint.
“His goal was to spread hatred, fear and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson and even poisoning children, for the purpose of harming racial minorities, the Jewish community and homeless individuals,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Tuesday.
Federal investigators learned the suspect authored a manifesto called the “Haters Handbook” under the nom de plume “Commander Butcher” after interviewing his ex-girlfriend, who they were looking into for a series of Neo-Nazi social media posts.
“I can proudly say I’ve murdered for white race and willing to bring more of chaos in this rotten world,” the manifesto reads, according to the complaint.
His group uses encrypted internet channels and group chats to send violent videos and distribute the Haters Handbook, the feds allege.
The undercover FBI agent started chatting with him last September on those encrypted channels, after posing as a prospective MKY member, the complaint says.
“Well yes we ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder vids on camera,” Chkhikvishvili allegedly wrote, adding that “[p]oisoning and arson are best options for murder,” according to the feds.
He had high hopes for the Santa scheme, describing it as “a bigger action than Breivik without getting caught” — likely a reference to Anders Behring Breivik, a Neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in a 2011 bombing and mass shooting spree in Norway., the feds say.
““Once you do poison attack, I’ll do message against US government,” he wrote in November, repeatedly asking for status updates through January, the feds allege. He suggested that if the undercover misses New Year’s Eve the attack could happen on “some Jewish holiday” at “Jewish schools full of kids….. Dead Jewish kids,” according to the complaint.
The feds say Chkhikvishvili also communicated with another Neo-Nazi leader in 2022 and 2023, the head of the Feuerkrieg Division, who pleaded guilty in September to making death threats against a Brooklyn journalist who wrote about the hate group.
“Mky is only group so far that done so many kills,” Chkhikvishvili told the other hate leader.
He also bragged about trying to kill a Jewish patient at a Brooklyn rehab center where he worked, boasting, ““I’m working in rehab center privately in Jewish family // I get paid to torture dying jew // I think I almost killed him today actually // If he dies soon that’s killstrike on me,” the feds allege.
Investigators determined he worked for an Orthodox Jewish family in July 2022. “The family member had been sick for some time and died in or about August or September 2022. The government does not allege in this Complaint that Chkhikvishvili was responsible for his death,” the complaint reads.
Chkhikvishvili could face up to 20 years behind bars once he’s brought to Brooklyn to face trial for the charges against him.