Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national with alleged neo-Nazi ties and whose aliases include “Commander Butcher,” has been charged in a plot to poison Jewish children in New York.

The 20-year-old alleged leader of the “Maniac Murder Cult” was arrested in Moldova on July 6 and indicted in Brooklyn, New York.

“The defendant sought to recruit others to commit violent attacks and killings in furtherance of his Neo-Nazi ideologies,” said Breon Peace, US attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

“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.”

According to the indictment in November 2023 Chkhikvishvili started to plan a major attack in New York City for New Year’s Eve.

“The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities,” the Justice Department stated.

“The scheme also involved providing candy laced with poison to children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn.”

On or around January 9, Chkhikvishvili wrote to an FBI informant posing as a recruit for Chkhikvishvili’s hate group that “Jews are literally everywhere,” and that the would-be recruit should attack on “some Jewish holiday” at “Jewish schools full of kids,” per the indictment.

“Dead Jewish kids,” he also wrote, per the complaint. He added that after publicising a video of the attack on Jewish kids, his hate group “will become bigger than Al Qaeda once it drops.”

The accused told the undercover agent how to make “ricin-based poisons in powder and liquid form, including by extracting ricin from castor beans,” per the Justice Department. “Some of the materials transmitted by Chkhikvishvili have been linked to radical Islamist jihadist groups and designated foreign terrorist organisations, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.”

On or around July 11, 2002, Chkhikvishvili bragged in a message “that he harmed and attempted to kill a Jewish victim in Brooklyn, N.Y.,” per the complaint.

“I’m working in rehab centre privately in Jewish family // I get paid to torture dying jew // I think I almost killed him today actually // If he dies soon that’s killstrike on me,” he wrote in a message, to which he attached “multiple images of his purported client in a hospital bed and bragged about harming the victim,” per the complaint.