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 distribute poisoned candy to Jewish children in New York City.

Mikhail Chkhikvishvili, a 21-year-old from the Republic of Georgia, was arrested in Moldova on July 6 based on an Interpol wanted notice.

On Tuesday, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn on four counts, including incitement to hate crimes and mass violence, following an investigation by the FBI and the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force.

“As alleged, the defendant attempted to recruit others to commit violent attacks and murders in furtherance of his neo-Nazi ideologies,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.

‘His aim was to spread hatred, fear and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson and even the poisoning of children, with the aim of harming minorities, the Jewish community and the homeless.’

Prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili, who went by the nicknames Michael, Mishka, Commandant Slager and Slager, is the leader of 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 ‘undesirable.'” federal prosecutors claim.

The goal is to disrupt social order and governments through terrorism and violent actions that promote fear and chaos.

The group spread to the United States and Chkhikvishvili was arrested after he unknowingly tried to recruit an undercover FBI agent.

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

Chkhikvishvili is said to have then replied: ‘Yes, we are asking people to provide footage of brutal beatings, arson/explosion or murder on camera.’

He then advised that ‘poisoning and arson’ [the] best options for murder’ and suggested that he consider a larger ‘mass murder in the United States’.

Chkhikvishvili also suggested that the undercover agent choose “targets with a low ethnicity level.”

In November, Chkhikvishvili reportedly began planning a “mass-casualty event in New York City on New Year’s Eve.”

“The scheme involved someone dressing up as Santa Claus and distributing poisoned candy to racial minorities and children in Jewish schools in Brooklyn,” prosecutors said.

He then laid out step-by-step instructions on how to carry out the plan. In a letter dated November 2, he instructed the undercover agent to use delivery services or pay cash to purchase the poisons and chocolate.

‘After handing out poisoned candy to many racial minorities and traitors, I’m just going to [a] “Take a taxi, pay to go somewhere where you have alternative clothes… and burn Santa’s clothes and gear,” Chkhikvishvili allegedly wrote in the post.

Prosecutors said the neo-Nazi also gave the undercover agent instructions on how to make and mix toxins and gases along with the message.

He also allegedly instructed the undercover agent to specifically target the Jewish community, saying that “Jews are literally everywhere” in Brooklyn.

It appears that Chkhikvishvili had high hopes for the plan and that he wanted 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.

“If you carry out a poison attack, I will send a message to the US government,” he is said to have written to the undercover agent in November, repeatedly asking for status updates.

‘MMC will be bigger than al-Qaeda once it goes down.’

When New Year’s Eve passed without any hate attacks, prosecutors said he changed his plan and now wanted to focus on poisoning children on “some Jewish holiday.”

Prosecutors also allege that Chkhikvishvili has been distributing a manifesto titled Hater’s Handbook since September 2021, in which he states that he “killed for the white race” and is “ready to cause more chaos in this rotten world.”

“Our primary purpose is to spread the flames of Lucifer and continue his message of ethnic cleansing, great urge or purification,” the manual reads, according to the criminal complaint.

Prosecutors say it would encourage readers to commit school shootings and use children to carry out suicide bombings and other mass killings of racial minorities.

The document describes methods and strategies for carrying out mass “terror attacks,” including, for example, the use of vehicles to attack “large open-air festivals, conventions, celebrations and parades” and “streets full of pedestrians,” they claim.

“It specifically encourages attacks within the United States.”

Chkhikvishvili is even said to have told others that he had committed hate crimes in 2022, while living with his grandmother in Brooklyn. He is said to have bragged to the leader of the Feurkrieg Division, another neo-Nazi group, that he had tortured and tried to kill an elderly Jewish man.

Investigators later determined that Chkhikvishvili had worked for a rehabilitation center in Brooklyn and that he was hired by an Orthodox Jewish family to care for a now-deceased man.

“I was paid to torture dying Jews,” he allegedly boasted in a message to the other neo-Nazi leader, sharing photos of the old man’s hospital bed.

However, federal authorities are not accusing Chkhikvishvili of the man’s death, noting that they have spoken to relatives of the deceased, who said he had been “ill for some time.”

Chkhikvishviliv now faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for incitement to commit a crime, conspiracy to commit violent crimes, disseminating information about the making and use of explosives, and sending threatening messages.

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