WARNING: This story accommodates references to and pictures of antisemitic graffiti.
A racially and ethnically motivated extremist group police say has been linked to an antisemitic vandalism case in Winnipeg attracts its hateful ideology from many sources however is finally fuelled by a way of nihilism, specialists say.
Manitoba RCMP stated final week they charged 19-year-old Nevin Younger with 4 terrorism-related fees after an investigation discovered hyperlinks to on-line radicalization and a violent extremist group known as M.Ok.Y.
He had beforehand been charged with spray-painting antisemitic graffiti on buildings, fences and different objects. The letters “M.Ok.Y.” have been additionally tagged round Winnipeg’s Charleswood space late final 12 months.
The abbreviation “M.Ok.Y.” comes from the Russian for “Maniac Homicide Cult,” in line with the Global Network on Extremism and Technology — one in every of a number of names the group goes by, together with “Maniacs: Cult of Killing,” “MMC” and “MKU.”
Although it originated in Russia and Ukraine, it now has members all over the world, in line with a 2024 report published by West Level army academy’s Combating Terrorism Heart, which drew from publicly out there sources resembling courtroom filings and from M.Ok.Y. posts.
Members purport to consider in an “aggressive type of nationwide socialism,” rooted in amongst different issues, “excessive misanthropy” and “theistic Satanism,” in line with the American army academy’s report.
Court docket paperwork from the indictment of an alleged M.K.Y. leader within the U.S. final 12 months say the group promotes a “neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology” that encourages violence towards Jewish individuals and different “undesirables.”
“They’re a part of a community [of groups] kind of outlined by nihilism,” stated Evan Balgord, government director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Community.
M.Ok.Y. is “notable in that they actually encourage offline violence,” he stated.
‘Mass casualty assault’ deliberate in NYC: FBI
The July 2024 U.S. indictment accuses Georgia nationwide Michail Chkhikvishvili, a then 20-year-old who glided by “Commander Butcher” and different aliases, of planning and recruiting for a “mass casualty assault” that was set to happen in New York Metropolis throughout New 12 months’s Eve in 2023.
The paperwork say that on or round Nov. 2 of that 12 months, “Butcher” despatched directions to an FBI agent posing as a possible recruit about a plan to have somebody costume up as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned sweet to racial minorities, together with Jewish youngsters.
Chkhikvishvili was arrested in Moldova on July 6 below an Interpol wished individual alert.
The U.S. Division of Justice stated in an electronic mail he is nonetheless pending extradition from Moldova, and that it can not share any additional particulars on the investigation.
If convicted, he faces as much as 20 years in jail.
An April 2024 affidavit filed by an FBI agent stated Chkhikvishvili is the writer of the “Hater’s Handbook,” a textual content extensively circulated amongst M.Ok.Y. members calling for ethnic cleaning and inspiring college shootings or utilizing youngsters for bombings and different mass killings.
The West Level report stated M.Ok.Y. “seeks to emulate serial killers and different mass murderers,” just like the gunman concerned in a 2020 mass killing at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, or Individuals like the Zodiac Killer and the Unabomber.
Chkhikvishvili can also be alleged to have shared manuals on easy methods to construct explosive gadgets, commit arson, and assault and kill victims with “knives, hammers, screwdrivers and different weapons,” in line with the FBI affidavit.
In a single message, he instructed the secret agent he might “do larger motion than Breivik with out getting caught,” referencing the neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.
Members should share movies of violence: report
Teams like M.Ok.Y. are populated by people who find themselves “disillusioned with society,” stated Georgios Samaras, an assistant professor of public coverage at King’s Faculty London who makes a speciality of extremism.
“Their objective is to interact in home terrorist actions. They unfold horror they usually’re making an attempt to amplify their hate speech,” he stated.
The 2024 FBI agent’s affidavit stated M.Ok.Y. members commonly talk and recruit via group chats in an “untraceable” social media platform.
Channels within the platform “have been used to share movies depicting and inspiring acts of violence on behalf of M.Ok.Y., together with what seem like beatings, stabbings and different assaults,” she wrote.
Balgord stated M.Ok.Y. notably targets vulnerable people for recruitment, and that, as with different on-line extremist teams, members are usually younger individuals.
“These are individuals who deeply hate themselves, deeply hate others,” Balgord stated. “They expose themselves to horrific photographs and movies that kind of desensitises them to violence.”
The West Level report stated individuals should perform a “violent or felony assault” to hitch M.Ok.Y., and that members are anticipated to movie or livestream the acts.
“We ask individuals for brutal beating, arson/explosion or homicide vids on digicam,” Chkhikvishvili instructed the undercover FBI agent, in line with the FBI affidavit.
The West Level report stated proof of “M.Ok.Y.-style” movies of felony acts and violence could be discovered way back to 2018. By 2019, individuals utilizing the group’s title have been claiming authorship of movies exhibiting assaults on homeless individuals.
The alleged chief of the group, Yegor Krasnov, was arrested in jap Ukraine in 2020, and there have additionally been M.Ok.Y.-related arrests in Romania and the U.Ok., the
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