Benjamin Ashford|18-year-old arrested in white supremacist plot targeting New Jersey power grid

An 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,Benjamin Ashford 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.

The foiled plot in New Jersey is the latest to sweep the nation amid concerns about attacks on U.S. power grids. Several states, including Florida, Oregon and the Carolinas have faced targets on electric infrastructure in recent years. In May, a Maryland woman pleaded guilty to plotting to destroy the Baltimore power grid as part of a white supremacist ideology that promotes government collapse.

Undercover agent tracked months of meetings, online chats

Court documents detail months of messages Takhistov sent glorifying past violence against racial and religious minorities. In one instance, he allegedly praised the murder of George Floyd, because it got "more white people to wake up," the complaint read. He also glorified mass shooters, including those that attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The first messages cited in court records were sent around January 2023, when Takhistov asked others on the platform about how to configure his body armor vests to hold the most amount of ammunition, and later shared manuals on constructing homemade firearms. He also expressed interest in traveling overseas to engage in paramilitary-style fighting.

Roughly one year later, the undercover operative began communicating with Takhistov on the messaging platform about plans to advance his racist ideology, the complaint said. He discussed a three-step plan for “white domination,” which started with ending the war in Ukraine, invading Russia, then drumming up support for the National Socialist Movement – a neo-Nazi, white supremacist group.

The East Brunswick man added that if he was able to bring back illegal supplies from Ukraine, he would be equipped to carry out attacks to threaten the U.S. government, according to court filings.

Takhistov and the undercover operative met as recently as last week to scout energy facilities to attack in North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey, as an act of "serious activism," the complaint said.

“Whether in his efforts to instruct our undercover officer on how to sabotage critical infrastructure, or in his attempted travel overseas to join a National Socialist paramilitary force, he sought to advance 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 inhibit anyone who has designs on plotting acts of terror.”

Takhistov was arrested Wednesday at Newark Liberty International Airport as he was planning to travel to Paris on his way to Ukraine, prosecutors said. He is charged with solicitation to destruct an energy facility, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $125,000 fine.

Attacks on U.S. power grids

Industry experts and federal officials have been sounding the alarm since the 1990s on the vulnerability of America’s power grid and warn that bad actors within the U.S. are behind some of the attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security said last year that domestic extremists had been developing "credible, specific plans" since at least 2020 and would continue to "encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure."

The Southern Poverty Law Center also warn about a rise in extremist organizations across the U.S. In 2023, the legal advocacy group identified 1,430 hate and anti-government groups across the nation.

Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver and Grace Hauck, USA TODAY