The leader of an eastern European neo-Nazi group has been extradited to the US from Moldova to face charges of soliciting hate crimes after allegedly instructing an undercover agent to distribute poisoned candy to Jewish children while dressed as Santa Claus.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, 21, originally from Georgia, was arraigned Friday in Brooklyn federal court on multiple felonies including soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence. He pleaded not guilty through his attorney, Samuel Gregory, who requested psychiatric evaluation and suicide watch for his client.
Prosecutors identified Chkhikvishvili, also known as “Commander Butcher,” as leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, an international extremist group promoting neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and violence against racial minorities, Jewish communities and others deemed “undesirables.”
The group’s solicitations, promoted through Telegram channels and a manifesto called the “Hater’s Handbook,” appear to have inspired multiple killings including a Nashville school shooting this year that killed a 16-year-old student, prosecutors said.
Since 2022, Chkhikvishvili travelled multiple times to Brooklyn, where he bragged about beating an elderly Jewish man and instructed others via text messages to commit violent acts for the Maniac Murder Cult, according to court papers.
When approached by an undercover FBI agent in 2023, Chkhikvishvili recruited the officer to a scheme involving “an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn,” the Justice Department said.
He later suggested focusing on “dead Jewish kids,” prosecutors said, after noting that “Jews are literally everywhere” in Brooklyn.
Chkhikvishvili described the United States as “big potential because accessibility to firearms” and suggested targeting homeless people because the government wouldn’t care “even if they die,” court papers showed.
He was arrested in Moldova last July and held there until this week’s extradition.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called the case “a stark reminder of the kind of terrorism we face today: online networks plotting unspeakable acts of violence against children, families, and the Jewish community in pursuit of a depraved, extremist ideology.”
(With information from Euronews)
