Another raid was carried out early Wednesday morning at the Romanian house of the Tate brothers, AP reports. The Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) searched four locations in Bucharest and Ilfov County, including the residence of the Tate brothers.
According to DIICOT’s announcement, the new criminal proceedings were initiated on suspicion of creating a criminal association, sexual abuse of minors, human trafficking and money laundering.
The Tate brothers and their two suspected accomplices of Romanian nationality were arrested on December 30, 2022 in the Voluntari suburb of Bucharest, and they were brought to court last June. The charges include the creation of a criminal organization, multiple counts of human trafficking, two counts of rape, unauthorized use of IT systems and modification of data, as well as assault and other acts of violence. According to DIICOT, at the beginning of 2021, the four defendants created an organized criminal group that engaged in human trafficking in Romania, the United States and Great Britain.
According to the indictment, members of the group forced young girls to appear in sexually explicit videos. The members of the criminal organization used the “loverboy” method, i.e. they ensnared the girls by pretending to be in love, who were then held captive in a house in Ilfov County and forced to make porn videos using various methods, which were then uploaded to the Internet. Authorities identified seven victims during the investigation, three of whom joined the lawsuit as civil litigants.
Andrew Tate, 37, who has more than 9 million followers on X, and his younger brother Tristan Tate spent three months in pre-trial detention. They were placed under house arrest in March 2023, which was lifted last August. They have been under official supervision since then. At the beginning of July, the court in Bucharest decided that although the brother and sister will remain under official supervision, they can leave Romania with the permission of the court.
Self-help guru-turned kick-boxing champion influencer Andrew Tate was revered by misogynistic male audiences on social media until he was banned from it and arrested by Romanian police on the above charges.
