Neo-Nazi 'Maniac Cult Leader' busted in terror plot to dress as Santa Claus and hand poisoned candy to Jewish kids in NYC

The leader of an Eastern European neo-Nazi group has been charged in a plot to have a follower dress up as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned candy to Jewish kids in New York City.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 21 year old from the Republic of Georgia, was arrested pursuant to an Interpol Wanted Person Diffusion in Moldova on July 6.

On Tuesday, a federal grad jury in Brooklyn indicted him on four counts including soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence following an FBI-New York Joint Terrorism Task Force Probe.

'As alleged, the defendant sought to recruit others to commit violent attacks and killings in furtherance of his Neo-Nazi ideologies,' said US Attorney Breon Peace. 

'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.'

An eastern European neo-Nazi leader has been charged in a plot to have a follower dress up as Santa Claus to hand out poisoned candies to Jewish children

Prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili - who went by the nicknames Michael, Mishka, Commander Butcher and Butcher - leads the Maniacs Murder Cult, an international extremist group based in Russia and Ukraine.

The group 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,"' federal prosecutors claim.

Its goal is to upset social order and governments via terrorism and violent acts that promote fear and chaos.

The group has spread into the United States, and Chkhikvishvili was arrested after he unwittingly tied to recruit an undercover FBI agent.

The undercover agent asked the cult leader in September 2024 whether there was an application process to join the group, a criminal complaint says.

Chkhikvishvili then allegedly replied, 'Well yes, we ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder vids on camera.'

He then went on to advise that 'poisoning and arson are [the] best options for murder' and suggested he consider a larger 'mass murder in the United States.

Chkhikvishvili also suggested the undercover cop choose 'low-race targets.' 

Michail Chkhikvishvili unwittingly sent an undercover agent tips to carry out the scheme

By November, Chkhikvishvili allegedly began scheming a 'mass casualty event for New York City on New Years Eve.

'The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn,' prosecutors said.

He then drafted step-by-step instructions on how to carry out the scheme, writing in a November 2 missive that the undercover agent should use delivery services or pay with cash to buy the poisons and the chocolate candies.

'After giving around poisoned candies to many racial minorities and traitors, just go to [a] taxi, pay to go somewhere where you will have alternative clothes... and burn Santa clothes and equipment,' Chkhikvishvili allegedly wrote in the message. 

Along with the message, prosecutors say the neo-Nazi provided the undercover cop with manuals on creating and mixing poisons and gases. 

He also allegedly told the undercover agent to specifically target the Jewish community, noting, 'Jews are literally everywhere' in Brooklyn.

He advised that the undercover agent have some clothes stashed away, and that he burn the Santa suit after doling out the poisoned candies

It seems Chkhikvishvili had high hopes for the plan, intending for it to be a 'bigger action than Breivik,' referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in a bombing and mass shooting in 2011.

'Once you do poison attack, I'll do message against US government,' he allegedly wrote to the undercover agent in November as he repeatedly asked for status updates.

'MMC will become bigger than al Qaeda once it drops.'

When New Year's Eve passed without any hate attack, prosecutors said he switched the plan to focus on poisoning children on 'some Jewish holiday.' 

Prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili leads the Maniacs Murder Cult, an international extremist group based in Russia and Ukraine

Prosecutors also claim that since September 2021, Chkhikvishvili had distributed a manifesto entitled Hater's Handbook, in which he states that he has 'murdered for the white race' and is 'willing to bring more chaos in this rotten world

'Our main goal is to spread flames of Lucifer and continue his message of ethnic cleansing, great drive or purification,' the handbook said, according to the criminal complaint.

It would go on to encourage readers to commit school shootings and to use children to perpetrate suicide bombings and other mass murders targeting racial minorities, prosecutors say. 

'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,' they claim.

'It specifically encourages committing attacks within the United States.'

Chkhikvishvili would even allegedly tell others he committed hate crimes while living with his grandmother in Brooklyn in 2022 - bragging to the leader of the Feurkrieg Division, another neo-Nazi group, that he tortured and tried to kill an elderly Jewish man.

Investigators later determined that Chkhikvishvili had worked for a Brooklyn-based rehabilitation facility and was employed by an Orthodox Jewish family to care for a now-deceased man.

'I got paid to torture dying Jew,' he allegedly bragged in a message to the other neo-Nazi leader, sharing photos from the elderly man's hospital bed.

But the feds are not accusing Chkhikvishvili for the man's death, noting they spoke to family members of the deceased who said he 'had been sick for some time.'

Chkhikvishviliv is now facing a maximum of 20 years in prison for solicitation of felonies, conspiring to solicit violent felonies, distributing information pertaining to the making and use of explosive devices and transmitting threatening communication. 

It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf.