Neo-Nazi known as ‘Commander Butcher’ charged for attempting to poison Jewish children

Luke Tress, JTA

Published July 16, 2024

A neo-Nazi from the country of Georgia was indicted on Monday for planning mass casualty attacks against Jews in New York City.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, also known as ‘Commander Butcher,’ planned to distribute poisoned candy to children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn and other attacks against minorities, prosecutors said

Chkhikvishvili, 20, a leader of a white supremacist extremist group known as the Maniac Murder Cult or MKY, was indicted on four counts at the federal Eastern District Court of New York in Brooklyn. He was arrested in Chișinău, Moldova, on July 6 on an Interpol arrest warrant.

“The defendant sought to recruit others to commit violent attacks and killings in furtherance of his Neo-Nazi ideologies,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace 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.”

MKY is an international, violent extremist group that adheres to a neo-Nazi ideology that promotes violence against Jews and others. The group is based in Russia and Ukraine and has members in the United States and other countries, prosecutors said.

“MKY members share a common goal of challenging social order and governments via terrorism and violent acts that promote fear and chaos,” the criminal complaint against Chkhikvishvili said.

Chkhikvishvili wrote and distributed a manifesto titled the “Hater’s Handbook” that advocates MKY’s goals and encourages members to carry out and film violent acts. In the document, Chkhikvishvili claims to have “murdered for the white race” and calls for ethnic cleansing and violence, including school shootings, using children for suicide bombings and mass terror attacks against crowds, specifically in the United States.

“I’ve murdered for the white race and willing to bring more chaos in this rotten world,” Chkhikvishvili said in one message. “Our main goal is to spread flames of Lucifer and continue his mission of ethnic cleansing, great drive of purification.”

Chkhikvishvili, a resident of Tblisi, Georgia, traveled to Brooklyn in June 2022. During the trip, he stayed with his grandmother and claimed to have committed hate crimes.

Since July 2022, Chkhikvishvili encouraged others, mostly through encrypted messaging platforms, to commit violence for MKY in New York and elsewhere. The messages include footage of beatings, stabbings and other attacks, as well as efforts to recruit followers who have experience with explosives and biological and chemical weapons. Prosecutors shared images from the group showing men in Nazi uniforms and a masked individual holding a bloody ax next to a swastika.

One of those he communicated with was an undercover FBI agent who posed as a prospective MKY recruit, and New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force identified Chkhikvishvili as “Commander Butcher” during an interview with Chkhikvishvili’s ex-girlfriend.

In November 2023, Chkhikvishvili proposed a mass attack in New York City on New Year’s Eve that would have had an individual dressed as Santa Claus hand out poisoned candy to minorities. The scheme also involved giving poisoned candy to children at Jewish schools.

Chkhikvishvili told the agent to target the Jewish community with poison, saying “Jews are literally everywhere” in Brooklyn and suggesting an attack on “some Jewish holiday” at Jewish schools full of kids.”

“Dead Jewish kids,” he added.

Chkhikvishvili also discussed targeting Jews in the United States with the leader of another neo-Nazi group called the Feuerkrieg Division, or FKD.

“Mky is only group so far that done so many kills,” Chkhikvishvili wrote the FKD leader on an encrypted messaging app, adding that he harmed and attempted to kill a Jewish victim in Brooklyn.

“I’m working in rehab center 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,” Chkhikvishvili wrote. He also sent images of his purported victim in a hospital bed.

New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force determined that Chkhikvishvili had worked in a Brooklyn rehabilitation facility and was employed by an Orthodox Jewish family to care for a family member.

Chkhikvishvili drafted a step-by-step plan and sent the undercover agent manuals on creating lethal poisons and gas and encouraged him to film acts of violence. Some of the plans were linked to radical Islamist groups such as the Islamic State and Chkhikvishvili repeatedly complimented jihadist ideology.

“I think bombs from fertilizers work great,” Chkhikvishvili said in a message. “For public places you must use nails.”

Chkhikvishvili was charged with conspiracy to solicit violent felonies; solicitation of violent felonies; distribution of information pertaining to the making and use of an explosive device; and transmission of threatening communications.

Jews are consistently targeted in hate crimes more than any other group in New York City, according to NYPD data.

In 2022, police in the city arrested two white supremacists and seized their weapons after the suspects discussed targeting a synagogue. The defendants, Christopher Brown and Matthew Mahrer, appeared in court last week and are set for another hearing next month.