Two British millionaire brothers, Andrew and Tristan Tate, arrested by DIICOT prosecutors on charges of human trafficking and rape, were granted 30-day pre-trial detention warrants on Friday night. The decision was made by the Bucharest Court.

The Tate brothers and two others arrested in a human trafficking and rape case have been remanded in custody for 30 days, a Bucharest court ruled Friday night, granting a request by DIICOT prosecutors.

Prosecutors of the Office for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism – Central Structure announced on Friday that they have informed the Judge of Rights and Freedoms of the Bucharest Court with a proposal for preventive arrest against the 4 defendants for a period of 30 days, News.ro recalls.

On Thursday, DIICOT prosecutors and police officers from the Bucharest Organized Crime Brigade executed five search warrants in a case involving organized crime, human trafficking and rape investigations. The case, opened in April, also involves Britons Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate, in whose villa a young woman with American citizenship was also found that month.

Together with two other persons, they were detained for 24 hours.

DIICOT accuses Andrew Tate and his brother

“At the beginning of 2021, 4 suspects (two citizens of Great Britain and two citizens of Romania) created a criminal group organized to commit the crime of drug trafficking on the territory of Romania, as well as other countries, such as the United States of America. America and Great Britain,” said the DIICOT press release on Thursday.

According to DIICOT prosecutors, victims were recruited by British nationals by misleading them about the intention of marriage/cohabitation and the existence of genuine feelings of love (the lover method).

“Later, they were transported and placed in houses in Ilfov County, where through the use of acts of physical violence and psychological coercion (through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and references to alleged debts) the members of the group sexually exploited them, forcing them to watch pornography. manifestations for the purpose of producing and distributing through social media platforms materials of this nature and subjugating the performance of work, in a coercive manner, in order to obtain important financial benefits consisting of monetary sums obtained as a result of users’ access to the materials,” says DIICOT.

Romanian prosecutors say they have so far identified six victims who were sexually exploited by an organized crime group.

“Regarding the crime of rape, it was stated that in March 2022, the suspect forced the victim to have sexual intercourse through physical violence and psychological pressure on two separate occasions,” the press release also states. States of DIICOT.

After searches of a villa near the British capital, investigators discovered video studios where at least six young women were allegedly exploited and forced to make pornographic videos, which were then sold on specialized platforms.

• Who is Andrew Tate, the controversial millionaire who said he moved to Romania to avoid rape allegations

• Greta Thunberg mocks Andrew Tate after he was detained in Romania / What started the row between them

Who is Andrew Tate, the controversial millionaire who said he moved to Romania to avoid rape allegations

Andrew Tate told his millions of followers around the world that he moved to our country to more easily avoid rape charges.

Tate was largely unknown until this year, when his popularity on social media exploded. Then, in August, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok for his misogynistic comments, and his online business Hustler University was hit hard.

Andrew Tate was also initially banned from Twitter, but the social media platform reinstated his account after Elon Musk officially took it over in late October.

At the age of 36, Tate began his kickboxing career with his last fight in Bucharest two years ago against Romanian fighter Cosmin Lingurar.

Born in Washington, DC, his father was an international chess master from the United States, he moved to the UK with his mother and brother after his parents divorced. Raised in his mother’s hometown of Lutton, he first came to the British public’s attention in 2016 when he was a contestant on that year’s season of Big Brother.

However, his “adventure” only lasted 6 days when Tate was kicked out of the reality competition after a video surfaced online of him beating a woman with a belt, threatening her to never text him again.

At the time, Tate told The Sun tabloid it was just “role-playing”, but a second video emerged soon after of him telling another woman to count the bruises he appeared to have inflicted on her.

However, both women denied being abused, saying the video showed consensual acts.

Andrew Tate’s Internet Business

After Tate began kickboxing less and less, he started his first company, a web chat company that he claimed employed 75 women, some of whom were his ex-girlfriends.

In an interview with The Mirror in March this year, he admitted the business was a “total scam” with women duping gullible men into giving them money through “sob stories”.

He became famous online for promising to show boys and men how to “crack the matrix,” a phrase he used for advice on how to become richer and more successful among women.

He had more than 4.5 million followers on Instagram and 600,000 followers on his YouTube channel before he was kicked off the social media. On TikTok, videos with his hashtag have been viewed more than 14 billion times.

A spokesperson for Tate told Bloomberg after he was banned from social media that:

“Banning Andrew Tate on these platforms might seem like the answer, but it’s not that simple. Eliminating Tate’s voice will not lead to a gentler society without hate speech.”

However, the business that made him famous on social media is the aforementioned “Hustler University,” a platform that offers online courses for “beginning alpha males” in cryptocurrency, stock market investing, and freelancing.

Practically a self-help “guru,” Tate promises his mostly male followers a recipe for making more money, attracting girls, and generally living in luxury.

How a British kickboxer became famous all over the world

In just a few months, he went from a semi-obscure character to one of the most famous personalities in the online environment, in July of this year Google recorded more searches for him than, for example, Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian.

But his rise to fame was no accident: journalists at The Observer found evidence that Tate’s followers are being trained to flood social media with videos of him and choose the most controversial clips to get maximum views and reaction.

The coordinated effort, which involves thousands of Hustler University members and an entire network of TikTok accounts, has been called by some experts a “blatant attempt” to manipulate social media algorithms to artificially promote related content.

In less than 3 months, this strategy has earned him a huge online following and millions of pounds. In August, The Guardian reported that Hustler University had grown to 127,000 members who pay £39 a month to join their ‘university’.

Andrew Tate’s controversial claims

But while it was this incident that sparked the most controversy and got him banned on social media, most of the content Tate shares isn’t about women. In addition to receiving rich tips, he is also known to be a vocal admirer of former US President Donald Trump, whom he describes as an “exemplary alpha male”.

Tate also spoke out against lockdowns introduced to combat the spread of the coronavirus and mandatory anti-covid vaccination. Speaking about depression, he said the mental disorder is “not real”.

He appeared on the scandalous InfoWars show of Alex Jones, who was recently ordered by an American judge to pay one billion dollars in compensation for promoting conspiracy theories related to the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in the US state of Connecticut.

About women, he claims that their place is in the home, that they cannot drive, and that they are the property of men.

Tate also believes that rape victims should “bear some of the responsibility” for the attacks, and says he only dates 18- and 19-year-old girls because he can leave his “mark” on them. In some of his videos, Tate talks about how he beats and strangles women, destroys their belongings and prevents them from going outside.

“Pak, you pull out a machete, boom, you hit her in the face and grab her by the throat. Shut up, you whore,” he declared in one of his clips, showing how he would behave with a woman if she accused him of cheating. In another video, he told how he threw women’s things out of the window.

He also complained about the “decline of Western civilisation” after seeing a poster at Heathrow Airport which he said “encouraged girls to go on holiday instead of being loving mothers and devoted wives”.

Although he has spoken openly and repeatedly about his acts of violence against several women, Tate has not been charged with any such acts, and UK police have only recently begun investigating the allegations against him.

How Tate arrived in Romania

In one of his videos, he explained the reasons why he decided to move to our country, suggesting that it would be easier for him to get rid of rape charges.

On that record, he said it would be “40%” of his motivation, but claimed that “I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of ​​being able to do what I want. I like to do what I want.”

In April, police from Ilfov raided the villa of Tate and his brother after receiving information from the United States Embassy in Bucharest that they were kidnapping a 21-year-old American citizen.

The young woman was found in the home of the two, and the two brothers were taken in for questioning, but were later released and denied any wrongdoing.

On April 12, DIICOT announced that the open case of the deprivation of liberty of a woman in which police from Ilfov had conducted searches was dismissed by DIICOT, expanding the criminal investigation into human trafficking and rape.

Both were detained for 24 hours this Thursday.

Between April, when the police carried out the first searches, and the moment when the two brothers were detained in Romania, the videos created by Andrew Tate gained popularity in the online environment, especially on the TikTok platform.

For example, in August alone, videos with his name were viewed more than a billion times. The posts don’t come directly from Tate, who no longer appears to be involved with the platform, but from hundreds of accounts of his fans and members of “Hustler University.”

Many of these accounts use Tate’s name and a picture of Tate in their profile picture, even though TikTok’s terms of service expressly prohibit this, as does hate speech.