Neo-Nazi leader indicted for plotting to kill minorities in NYC on New Year's Eve

July 17 (UPI) -- The leader of an Eastern European neo-Nazi White supremacist group has been indicted in the United States for planning to kill minorities in New York City by having a recruit dress up as Santa and hand out poisoned candy on New Year's Eve.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 21-year-old Georgian national who went by the name Commander Butcher, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., on four counts stemming from soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence, the Justice Department said in a statement .

He was arrested July 6 in Chișinău, Moldova, under an Interpol arrest warrant.

"The defendant sought to recruit others to commit violent attacks and killings in furtherance of his neo-Nazi ideologies," United States Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement .

"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."

The indictment accuses Chkhikvishvili of being the leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, which federal authorities said promotes violence against racial minorities and those it deems "undesirables," including members of the Jewish community.

The group espouses terrorism and violent acts to achieve its goals through fear and chaos. A handbook Chkhikvishvili is accused of giving to recruits encourages school shootings and to use children in suicide bombings that target racial minorities, authorities said.

Federal prosecutors allege in the indictment that Chkhikvishvili as early as July 2022 solicited people via encrypted mobile messaging platforms to commit violence hate crimes in New York.

The charging document states that among those he was in communication with was an undercover FBI agent, posing as a prospective member of the MKY.

In November 2023, Chkhikvishvili is accused of urging the undercover agent to commit bombings and arson and of planning a mass casualty attack for New York City on New Year's 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," the Justice Department said.

He crafted step-by-step instructions for the attack and shared with the agent manuals for creating lethal poisons and gases, the indictment said, adding that some of the materials he provided to the agent were linked to radical Islamist groups designated as foreign terrorists, such as the Islamic State.

Chkhikvishvili said he planned for the attack to be "bigger action than Breivik," according to federal prosecutors.

Anders Breivik is a far-right White supremacist who killed 77 people in Norway on July 22, 2011, by setting of a bomb and then opening fire at a youth camp while dressed as a police officer.

Chkhikvishvili allegedly boasted of having "murdered for the White race" and would do so again.

If convicted, Chkhikvishvili faces a maximum of 20 year's imprisonment for solicitation of violent felonies, five years for conspiring to solicit violent felonies, 20 years for distributing information about the making and use of explosive devices and five years for transmitting threatening communications.