Andrew Tait under house arrest

Article Content

BUCHAREST, Romania — A court in the Romanian capital on Thursday placed controversial Internet celebrity Andrew Tate under house arrest for 30 days as prosecutors investigate a sprawling new case involving human trafficking and sex with minors.

Article Content

The Bucharest court’s decision came a day after prosecutors detained six people, including Tate, 37, and his 36-year-old brother Tristan Tate. Masked police raided four homes The prosecutor asked the court to keep the brothers in custody for 30 days in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county. Tristan has been placed under judicial control, which usually involves geographical restrictions and regular reporting to police.

Responding to the decision, the brothers’ spokeswoman Mateea Petrescu said the judge rejected the prosecutor’s request because the brothers had “behaved in an exemplary manner” when they were subject to preventive arrest measures in another previous case, and they had vehemently denied all charges against them and were “firmly proving their innocence.”

Article Content

Article Content

The Tate brothers, both former taekwondo athletes with dual British and American citizenship, are awaiting trial in Romania along with two Romanian women in a separate human trafficking case. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted the four men last year.

In the new case, Romania’s anti-organized crime agency DIICOT said it was investigating allegations of human trafficking, including trafficking of minors, sexual relations with minors, forming an organized crime group, money laundering and influencing speech. The alleged crimes took place between 2014 and 2024.

DIICOT said the defendants used coercive “lover” tactics to exploit 34 vulnerable victims, forcing them to pay to produce pornographic material online, and that the defendants pocketed more than $2.8 million (€2.5 million) generated by the practice.

Article Content

DIICOT said an unnamed foreign man also sexually exploited a 17-year-old foreigner and claimed he made $1.5 million (1.3 million euros) from his criminal activities, all of which he kept. The same man “had sex and engaged in sexual acts with a 15-year-old girl on several occasions,” the agency said.

After the judge issued the house arrest order, Andrew Tate told reporters outside the courtroom that many of the alleged victims in the new case had statements in defense of the Tate brothers. “It was a trap, absolutely disgusting, and in fairness to the judge who saw through the lies and released us,” he said.

Andrew Tait, who has 9.9 million followers on social media platform X, is known for expressing misogynistic views online and has repeatedly claimed prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He has previously been banned from various social media platforms for his misogynistic views and hate speech.

Article Content

“Throughout the criminal proceedings, persons under investigation enjoy the procedural rights and guarantees provided for in the Criminal Procedure Code, as well as the presumption of innocence,” DIICOT said.

During Wednesday’s police raid, officers also searched the Tate brothers’ large property near Bucharest, seizing 16 luxury cars, a motorcycle, laptops, thousands of dollars in cash, luxury watches and data storage drives.

Sorry, this video could not be loaded.

Play Video

The latest case against the Tates adds to the long list of legal problems they face.

After the Tette brothers were arrested in December 2022, they were detained by police for three months before being transferred to house arrest. They were later confined to the city of Bucharest and the nearby county of Ilfov, and then to Romania.

Article Content

In April this year, a Bucharest court ruled on the case, concluding that the prosecution’s case against them met legal standards and that the trial could begin, but no trial date was set.

Last month, the court overturned an earlier ruling that allowed the Tate brothers to leave Romania while awaiting trial. The earlier court ruled on July 5 that they could leave the country as long as they remained in the 27-member European Union. That ruling was final.

The Tate brothers also appeared before the Bucharest Court of Appeal in March in a separate case after British authorities issued arrest warrants for the alleged sexual assaults in the UK case between 2012 and 2015. The Court of Appeal granted the UK’s request to extradite the Tate brothers back to the UK, but only after the Romanian legal proceedings were concluded.

—McGrath reported from Sighisoara, Romania.

Article Content