Andrew Tate must be placed under house arrest

A Romanian court has ordered that internet personality Andrew Tate be placed under house arrest, his lawyer said Thursday. He was one of six people arrested in an investigation into human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

The former professional kickboxer and his brother Tristan were among six people detained for the first 24 hours on Wednesday after Romania’s DIICOT anti-organized crime unit carried out four house searches in the Ilfov region and Bucharest municipality.

DIICOT had asked the Bucharest court to arrest the Tate brothers for 30 days, but the judge decided to place Andrew Tate under house arrest for that period and Tristan under judicial supervision, their representative Mateea Petrescu said.

“The Tates welcome the decision and strongly deny all allegations made against them. They stress that the accusations are baseless and not supported by substantial evidence,” Petrescu wrote in a statement.

In mid-2023, Tate, along with his brother and two Romanian female suspects, were charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. They denied these allegations.

Before their latest arrest, the brothers were subject to a travel ban, which allowed them to travel within Romania but not to leave the country.

Tate, a self-described misogynist, has gained millions of fans on social media by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics say demeans women.

A post on Tate’s account on social media platform X said: “All they are trying to do is damage my name with complete nonsense,” without specifying who it was about.

DIICOT said in a statement that it had ordered the arrest of six people for crimes including forming an organized criminal organization, trafficking in persons, trafficking in minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering.

It was said that a request had been made for three of the arrested suspects to remain in custody, while another suspect would be placed under house arrest.

According to DIICOT, two of the suspects used the “loverboy” method, which involves convincing victims that they are in a romantic relationship. They used this method to force 34 victims to produce pornography. They then sold this pornography online for a profit of over $2.8 million and 887,000 tokens.

DIICOT alleges that one of the defendants forced a 17-year-old minor to produce pornography in Britain and Romania, generating $1.5 million in profits. It also alleges that the same defendant repeatedly had sexual relations with a 15-year-old victim.

Reporting by Octav Ganea, Alan Charlish and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Alex Richardson and Nick Zieminski