ROMANIA: The controversial online influencer and former professional kickboxer Andrew Tate has been detained in Romania as part of a rape and human trafficking investigation, authorities confirmed.
In Bucharest, the capital, Andrew Tate’s home was raided while he and his brother Tristan were being detained.
Since April, a criminal investigation into the Tate brothers has been ongoing. Although they chose not to comment, their attorney acknowledged that they had been detained.
“The four suspects … appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost,” prosecutors stated.
“They would have gained important sums of money.” Six women who had been sexually exploited by the suspects, according to prosecutors, have been found.
Tate, who shifted to Romania five years ago, gained notoriety in 2016 after being kicked off the British TV programme Big Brother over a video that seemed to show him attacking a woman.
Before gaining worldwide notoriety, Andrew Tate, a US-born British citizen, participated professionally in kickboxing and won world titles.
In 2016, he entered the Big Brother house but was quickly sent out after a video surfaced that purported to show him hitting a female contestant with a belt.
When he was kicked off the programme, Andrew Tate claimed that the footage had been altered and described it as “a total lie trying to make me look bad.”
He continued to gain attention online after Twitter banned him for claiming that women should “bear responsibility” for being sexually attacked.
Other social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, have all banned Tate, and TikTok has also removed him, citing the statement that “misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated.”
His posts on other social networking sites encourage misogyny and target women, gaining millions of views.
He has lately been allowed to return to Twitter with former US President Donald Trump following Elon Musk’s takeover.
On Wednesday, Tate and climate activist Greta Thunberg became embroiled in a Twitter verbal duel.
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