US court sentences Georgian national to 15 years in prison over white supremacist terror plot
Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old Georgian national and a leader of the ‘international racially motivated violent extremist group’ known as the Maniacs Murder Cult, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in the US for ‘soliciting hate crimes and distributing instructions to make bombs and ricin’.
In a press release dated from 13 May, the US Justice Department said Chkhikvishvili had ‘incited multiple attacks and killings around the world’.
Chkhikvishvili was originally arrested in July 2024 in Moldova’s capital Chișinău, where he remained until his extradition to the US in May 2025.
Circa September 2021, Chkhikvishvili reportedly began distributing a manifesto known as the ‘Hater’s Handbook’ in which he wrote that he has ‘murdered for the white race’ while encouraging and instructing others to do the same in acts of mass violence and ‘ethnic cleansing’. The handbook specifically encouraged attacks on US soil.
Presenting their case in court, the prosecution noted that a number of crimes had been connected to the handbook, including a mass stabbing outside a mosque in Eskişehir, Turkey in August 2024, as well as a January 2025 school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, which killed a 16-year-old student.
In June 2022, Chkhikvishvili visited Brooklyn where he allegedly used Telegram to encourage others to commit violent hate crimes while also conspiring with the leader of a separate neo-Nazi group. He also made contact with an individual claiming to be a prospective recruit, but who was actually an undercover FBI employee.
In conversations with the undercover operative, Chkhikvishvili began planning ‘a mass casualty attack in New York City to take place 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’. In January 2024, the plan evolved to specifically target Jewish children in Brooklyn.
‘Chkhikvishvili, a leader of the “Maniacs Murder Cult”, repeatedly called for the murder of innocent civilians, including children, and schemed to attack and terrorise Jewish communities and racial minorities in the United States’, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said.
‘Today’s sentence takes a monster off our streets and protects our communities at least for a time’, he added
Separately, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon emphasised that ‘individuals who plan and encourage this violence will not find refuge in the dark corners of the Internet. Together, with our law enforcement partners, we will relentlessly pursue these criminals, and hold them accountable’.
Yousef Bardouka
