A leader of a Georgian white supremacist organization was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years behind bars for orchestrating and soliciting mass racial murders, including a scheme to poison Jewish schoolchildren in New York City, the US Department of Justice revealed.

Extradited from Moldova last May, Michail Chkhikvishvili - leader of the Maniac Murder Cult (MKY) and known as 'Commander Butcher' - admitted guilt in November to charges of soliciting hate crimes and supplying guidance on producing bombs and ricin to advance his group's aims of accelerationism, ethnic cleansing, and white supremacy.

National Security Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg declared in a Wednesday statement that Chkhikvishvili's sentencing had removed 'a monster off our streets' and safeguarded 'our communities at least for a time.'

Details from the criminal complaint, the DoJ, and prior US embassy statements in Moldova indicate that the then-20-year-old Chkhikvishvili sought in 2023 - unknowingly - an undercover FBI agent to carry out bombings and arson targeting Jews and racial minorities.

Murders, savage assaults, fires, and explosions

To join MKY, recruits were instructed to submit videos showing murders, savage beatings, arson, or bombings. Private chat videos from MKY members reportedly showed beatings, stabbings, and additional violent acts.

'Poisoning and arson are the best options for murder,' Chkhikvishvili allegedly declared.

The neo-Nazi figure devised a New Year's Eve assault in NYC, featuring an operative in a Santa Claus outfit distributing poisoned candy to racial minorities.

Aiming at Brooklyn's Jewish population

By January, the scheme shifted to striking Brooklyn's Jewish community, schools, and children using ricin-laced poisons during a Jewish holiday.

Chkhikvishvili supplied the undercover agent with materials and directions for producing the toxin. He aimed for an operation surpassing 'Breivik,' alluding to Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, responsible for 77 deaths in the 2011 Norway bombing and shooting rampage.

DoJ Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon stated Wednesday that planners of 'abhorrent acts of antisemitic and racially motivated violence ... will not find refuge in the dark corners of the Internet.'

Chkhikvishvili's terrorist solicitations and plots reached beyond the 2023 schemes. Starting in 2021, he shared his Hater's Handbook manifesto with MKY followers and other extremists. The text urged school shootings, child suicide bombings, and vehicle attacks on minorities at public gatherings.

In this key radicalization and recruitment tool, the MKY head boasted of committing murders to serve his group's cause.

'I can proudly say I've murdered for the white race and am willing to bring more chaos to this rotten world. This book is for readers who are cruel warriors or are willing to become one and are ready to take massive actions,' the handbook stated, per the criminal complaint. 'Our main goal is to spread the flames of Lucifer and continue his mission of ethnic cleansing... incredible drive of purification.'

He discussed with the Feuerkrieg Division leader methods to smuggle unmarked guns into the country, boasting that 'MKY is the only group so far that has done so many kills.'

Additionally, Chkhikvishvili claimed to his peer that he had employment at a private rehabilitation center where he was 'paid to torture dying Jews.'

'I think I almost killed him today, actually,' the suspect remarked. 'If he dies soon, that's killstrike on me [sic].'

Arrested in Chisinau in July, Chkhikvishvili was extradited to the US on May 22. FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Donald Holstead noted in a Wednesday statement that the process proved 'once again that those who try to harm our citizens will not be able to hide overseas from the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors.'

'The defendant recruited others to commit violent attacks against the Jewish community and racial minorities, and he will now pay a steep price for his crimes,' Holstead added.

The DoJ reported that a 17-year-old shooter at a Nashville school live-streamed his January assault, partly crediting MKY and naming Chkhikvishvili in his manifesto. One victim died and another was injured before the gunman took his own life at Antioch High School.

In August 2024, an individual in Turkey live-streamed stabbing five people outside an Eskisehir mosque. Dressed in a tactical vest with Nazi insignia, he shared links to the Hater's Handbook and referenced Chkhikvishvili in his manifesto.

Last March, Manitoba's Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested 19-year-old Nevin Thunder Young for antisemitic vandalism in Winnipeg, featuring swastikas and MKY mentions.

'This defendant concocted hate-fueled, mass-casualty plans and inspired others to commit attacks based on his vile rhetoric,' said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. 'This violent extremist's intentions were clear: harm and kill as many Jews and racial groups as possible.'