Neo-Nazi admits plotting to give poisoned sweets to Jewish children in New York

A neo-Nazi gang leader has admitted planning a plot to hand out poisoned sweets to Jewish children in New York, after trying to recruit an undercover FBI agent to pose as Santa Claus.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old from Georgia who calls himself “Commander Butcher”, pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn federal court to soliciting hate-motivated violent felonies and sharing instructions on how to make explosives and ricin.

Prosecutors say he led the “Maniac Murder Cult”, an online extremist network built around accelerationist neo-Nazi ideology that encourages attacks on Jews, racial minorities and others it labels “undesirables”. The group circulated a manifesto titled the Hater’s Handbook, and authorities say its propaganda has been linked to real-world violence, including a school shooting in Nashville earlier this year in which a 16-year-old was killed.

According to court filings, Chkhikvishvili repeatedly travelled to Brooklyn from 2022 onwards, boasting of assaulting an elderly Jewish man and urging others via encrypted channels to commit acts of violence.

When contacted by an undercover agent in 2023, he outlined a scheme for “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 US Justice Department said.

He later told the agent they should focus on “dead Jewish kids”, adding that “Jews are literally everywhere” in the borough. He also described the United States as offering “big potential because of accessibility to firearms” and suggested homeless people could be targeted because authorities “wouldn’t care even if they die”, according to prosecutors.

Chkhikvishvili was arrested in Moldova in July 2024 and extradited to the United States in May. Federal prosecutors say they will seek a sentence of up to 18 years.