According to Portal, men’s rights internet personalities and brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by Romanian prosecutors on Thursday on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organized crime group.
The brothers, who run an entertainment camera service for adults, are being held for 24 hours along with two Romanian suspects, prosecutors from the Organized Crime Unit said in a statement after searching their properties in Bucharest, Portal reports.
“The four suspects… appear to have created an organized crime group with the aim of recruiting, harboring and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content to be viewed on specialized websites for a fee,” the statement said the prosecutors.
When asked by Rolling Stone for comment, a spokesman for the Tate brothers said: “We are unable to provide details at this time on alleged reports of their detention; However, Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always help and assist in any way they can.”
The Tates – Andrew in particular – have become increasingly popular online for their violent and often misogynistic views of women, sexuality and rape culture. Andrew had a small stint as a professional kickboxer before being invited to star in the UK version of Big Brother 2016. At some point he was kicked out. While Andrew remains banned from the most popular social media sites like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, his Twitter account was recently restored when the platform was taken over by Elon Musk. The brothers present themselves as teachers who want to open people’s eyes to the lies of the government, women and the left-wing media, and have reportedly made millions through online courses on thought and cryptocurrency. Following several of his bans in August, Andrew told Rolling Stone in a statement that many of his controversial comments were made in jest and were part of a “character” he portrayed online.
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“The media is giving me the wrong image, and when Instagram bows to the pressure, that’s a huge shame,” Tate said. “I’m kind of the bad guy if all my contributions have been Bible verses and charitable donations.” While Tate says he only plays one character, there are thousands of hours of content behind his beliefs. And fake or not, he’s built a financial empire on some pretty damaging takes, a clear contradiction to the “Bible verses and charitable giving” he seems to think his content is all about.
The villa was first raided in April 2022 after Romanian police received a report of a woman being held against her will in the house, according to the Daily Beast. No arrests were made at the time, but authorities said investigations were ongoing; The police reported finding an American and a Romanian woman in the villa. At the time, a US State Department spokesman said it was “aware of reports of a US citizen being held against his will in Romania” but had made no further comment. The brothers were not arrested in this incident.
This isn’t Andrew’s first clash with authorities. Before he moved to Romania, several other women accused him of abuse, and he implied he was moving to Romania because of his lax approach to law enforcement.
“I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of being able to just do whatever I want,” he said in a YouTube video that was removed when he was banned from the site. “I like being free.”
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The news also comes a day after Tate made headlines over a public feud with multiple Nobel Peace Prize winner and climate activist Greta Thunberg. Andrew tweeted a list of his luxury cars before asking Thunberg: “Please provide your email address so I can send a full list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.” The climate activist replied: “Yes, please clarify me on. Email me at [email protected].” Tate didn’t seem to take the insult well and was the first to reply, “How dare you?” before sending the activist a video reply 10 hours later, in which he made several jokes that didn’t land and then accused the 19-year-old of being a slave to the “Matrix”.
No specific charges were announced against the brothers.