A Georgian white supremacist group leader was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday for planning and soliciting racial mass killings, including a plot to poison New York City Jewish school children, the US Department of Justice announced.
After having been extradited from Moldova last May, Maniac Murder Cult (MKY) leader Michail Chkhikvishvili, also known as “Commander Butcher,” had pleaded guilty in November to soliciting hate crimes and providing instructions to make bombs and ricin to further his organization’s goals of accelerationism, ethnic cleansing, and racial supremacy.
National Security Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg said in a Wednesday statement that the sentencing of Chkhikvishvili had taken "a monster off our streets" and protected "our communities at least for a time.”
According to the criminal complaint, the DoJ, and past statements by the US embassy in Moldova, then-20-year-old Chkhikvishvili attempted in 2023 to solicit, unbeknownst to him, an undercover FBI agent to commit bombings and arson against Jews and racial minorities.
Murder, brutal beatings, arson, and bombings
The agent was told that they could apply to join MKY by providing videos of murder, brutal beatings, arson, or bombings. Videos posted by MKY members in private chats allegedly depicted beatings, stabbings, and other assaults.
“Poisoning and arson are the best options for murder,” Chkhikvishvili allegedly said.
The neo-Nazi leader plotted a New Year’s Eve mass casualty attack in NYC involving an operative dressed as Santa Claus handing out poisoned candy to racial minorities.
Targeting the Brooklyn Jewish community
In January, the plan evolved to target the Brooklyn Jewish community, schools, and children with ricin-based poisons on a Jewish holiday.
Chkhikvishvili provided materials and instructions to the undercover FBI agent on how to create the poison. He reportedly wanted the attack to be a “bigger action than Breivik,” referring to Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 people in a 2011 Norway mass shooting and bombing.
DoJ Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a Wednesday statement in response to the sentencing for plotting "abhorrent acts of antisemitic and racially motivated violence" that “Individuals who plan and encourage this violence will not find refuge in the dark corners of the Internet."
Yet Chkhikvishvili's machinations and solicitation of terrorism extended further than the 2023 plots. Since 2021, Chkhikvishvili has distributed his Hater’s Handbook manifesto to MKY members and other radicals. The handbook encourages followers to commit school shootings, use child suicide bombers, and execute vehicle rammings against minorities during outdoor events.
In the document, a key tool in the group’s radicalization and recruitment efforts, the MKY leader claimed to have committed murders for his group’s objectives.
“I can proudly say I’ve murdered for the white race and am willing to bring more chaos to this rotten world. This book is for readers who are cruel warriors or are willing to become one and are ready to take massive actions,” read the handbook, according to the criminal complaint. “Our main goal is to spread the flames of Lucifer and continue his mission of ethnic cleansing... incredible drive of purification.”
He had consulted with the leader of the Feuerkrieg Division on how they could transport unmarked firearms into the country, bragging that “MKY is the only group so far that has done so many kills.”
Further, Chkhikvishvili bragged to his counterpart that he had worked at a private rehabilitation facility where he was “paid to torture dying Jews.”
“I think I almost killed him today, actually,” said the suspect. “If he dies soon, that’s killstrike on me [sic].”
Chkhikvishvili was extradited from Moldova to the US on May 22 after being arrested in Chișinau in July. FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Donald Holstead said in a Wednesday statement that the extradition showed "once again that those who try to harm our citizens will not be able to hide overseas from the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors."
“The defendant recruited others to commit violent attacks against the Jewish community and racial minorities, and he will now pay a steep price for his crimes,” said Holstead.
The DoJ said that a 17-year-old Nashville school shooter live-streamed his attack last January and attributed his actions in part to MKY, with the manifesto explicitly mentioning Chkhikvishvili. One person was murdered and another wounded before the shooter committed suicide at Antioch High School.
In August 2024, another person live-streamed themselves stabbing five people outside an Eskisehir mosque in Turkey. He wore a tactical vest emblazoned with Nazi symbols and posted links to the Hater’s Handbook, with a manifesto again referencing Chkhikvishvili.
Last March, 19-year-old Nevin Thunder Young was arrested by the Manitoba Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a spate of antisemitic vandalism in Winnipeg, which included swastikas and references to MKY.
"This defendant concocted hate-fueled, mass-casualty plans and inspired others to commit attacks based on his vile rhetoric,” said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “This violent extremist’s intentions were clear: harm and kill as many Jews and racial groups as possible."