New Jersey man arrested in connection with extremist plot against power grid

An 18-year-old New Jersey man who was reportedly on his way to join a paramilitary force in Ukraine was arrested at an airport this week after telling an undercover police officer his plan to destroy a power substation as part of his racist ideology, federal prosecutors said.

Federal court documents show that Andrew Takhistov directed the officer to destroy a New Jersey energy facility with Molotov cocktails while he was abroad, detailing how to bypass surveillance cameras, how to set up discreet parking spots and how to make escape plans.

He also spent months discussing moves toward “white rule” and inciting violence against ethnic and religious minorities, court documents say. Takhistov allegedly planned 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 portion of New Jersey’s population were without power in the midst of the current heat wave,” FBI Special Agent in Charge James Dennehy in Newark said in a statement.

The foiled New Jersey attack is the latest to rock the nation as fears grow about attacks on U.S. power grids. In recent years, several states, including Florida, Oregon and the Carolinas, have been victims of attacks on their electrical infrastructure. In May, a Maryland woman pleaded guilty to plotting to destroy Baltimore’s power grid, saying it was part of a racist ideology that advocates the collapse of government.

Undercover agent monitored meetings and online chats for months

Court documents detail how Takhistov spent months sending messages glorifying past violence against racial and religious minorities. In one case, he praised the murder of George Floyd because it “woke up more white people,” the indictment says. He also glorified mass murderers, including those who attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The first messages cited in the court documents were sent around January 2023. At the time, Takhistov asked others on the platform how he could configure his body armor to hold as much ammunition as possible. He later shared manuals on how to build homemade firearms. He also expressed interest in traveling abroad to take part in paramilitary combat.

About a year later, the undercover agent began communicating with Takhistov on the messaging platform about plans to promote his racist ideology, the complaint says. He discussed a three-step “white supremacy” plan that began with ending the war in Ukraine, invading Russia and then promoting the National Socialist Movement – a neo-Nazi, white supremacist group.

The East Brunswick man added that if he could bring back illegal shipments from Ukraine, he would be able to carry out attacks to threaten the U.S. government, court documents show.

Takhistov and the undercover agent met just last week to scout out energy facilities in North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey, that they could attack as “serious activism,” the complaint says.

“Whether in his efforts to train our undercover agent in critical infrastructure sabotage or his attempt to travel abroad to join a Nazi paramilitary force, he sought to achieve his ideological goals through destruction and violence,” said New York Police Department Commissioner Edward Caban. “The NYPD and our law enforcement partners will remain relentless in our mission to identify, investigate and stop anyone who plans to commit terrorist attacks.”

Takhistov was arrested on Wednesday at Newark Liberty International Airport as he was trying to travel from there to Paris via Ukraine, prosecutors said. He is accused of inciting the destruction of an energy facility, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $125,000 fine.

Attacks on US power grids

Industry experts and federal officials have been sounding the alarm about the vulnerability of the American power grid since the 1990s, warning that malicious actors from the United States are behind some of the attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security said last year that domestic extremists had developed “credible, concrete plans” since at least 2020 and continued to “sponsor physical attacks on electrical infrastructure.”

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