18-year-old arrested in white supremacist plot targeting New Jersey power grid
Minnah ArshadAn 18-year-old New Jersey man allegedly en route to join a paramilitary force in Ukraine was arrested at an airport this week after sharing his plan with an undercover law enforcement operative to destroy an electrical substation as part of his white supremacist ideology, according to federal prosecutors.
Andrew Takhistov instructed the officer to destroy a New Jersey energy facility with Molotov cocktails while he was overseas, detailing how to evade surveillance cameras, discreet parking locations, and escape plans, according to federal court papers.
He also spent months discussing steps to achieve "white domination" and encouraged violence against ethnic and religious minorities, court filings said. Takhistov was allegedly planning to travel to Ukraine to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a Russian militia fighting for Ukraine.
“Imagine the chaos and number of life-threatening emergencies if a large population of people in New Jersey lost power in the middle of the current heat wave,” FBI Newark Special Agent in Charge James Dennehy said in a statement.
3 men sentenced for racist conspiracy plot to destroy Northwest power grid
Three men were sentenced to prison for their roles in plotting to attack an energy facility to further their "violent white supremacist ideology," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday.
Federal officials did not identify the specific location of the facility but court documents say agents seized a handwritten list of about a dozen locations in Idaho and surrounding states that contained "a transformer, substation, or other component of the power grid for the Northwest United States."
“As part a self-described ‘modern day SS,’ these defendants conspired, prepared, and trained to attack America’s power grid in order to advance their violent white supremacist ideology,” said Garland said.
The three men - Paul James Kryscuk, 38 of Idaho; Liam Collins, 25 of Rhode Island; and Justin Wade Hermanson, 25 of North Carolina - were given sentences ranging from 21 months to 10 years for their roles in conspiracy and firearms offenses. Garland said the men met on a now-closed neo-Nazi forum called the "Iron March," researching and discussing former power grid attacks.
Their sentencing is the latest development in energy attacks across the U.S. by saboteurs looking to blow up or cripple power grids. People vandalized or shot at power substations in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington state, causing major power outages in one instance.
Garland said in the case of the three men, they wanted to use violence to "undermine our democracy."
Men stole military gear, trained for the attacks
The Justice Department said in a statement the men, part of a five-person 2021 indictment, spent time between 2017 and 2020 manufacturing firearms, stealing military equipment and gathering information on explosives and toxins for the attack.
Collins and co-defendant Jordan Duncan, of North Carolina, were former Marines, stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and used their status to illegally obtain military equipment and information for the plot. According to the indictment, they wanted to use 50 pounds of homemade explosives to destroy transformers.
The men could be seen in a propaganda video wearing Atomwaffen masks and giving the "Heil Hitler" sign. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated Atomwaffen as a terroristic neo-Nazi group.
"In October 2020, a handwritten list of approximately one dozen intersections and places in Idaho and surrounding states was discovered in Kryscuk’s possession, including intersections and places containing a transformer, substation, or other component of the power grid for the northwest United States," the department wrote this week.
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