1 year ago
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A court in Bucharest has ruled that Andrew Tate must remain in preventive custody until at least 27 February while an organised crime investigation continues into the former kickboxer, influencer and professed misogynist.
The court on Friday agreed to a request by the country’s organised crime agency, Diicot, to extend Tate’s detention, along with that of his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects, one a former police officer.
“At the demand of the prosecutors, the court has accepted the extension of the pre-trial detention of the two Tate brothers until 27 February,” a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, Ramona Bolla, told local media. They can appeal the decision.
The four suspects were arrested by police on 29 December on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group to exploit women and remanded in custody for 30 days. Both men have denied wrongdoing.
An appeals court last week rejected their demand for release after prosecutors argued that given their “financial capacity”, the brothers could “evade investigation, leave Romania and settle in countries that do not allow extradition”.
Besides guns, knives and large sums of cash, investigators have so far seized 14 luxury watches, 15 luxury cars – three Porsches, two BMWs, two Ferraris, an Aston Martin, a McLaren, a Lamborghini and five Mercedes – and 10 properties belonging to the Tates in Romania.
Authorities have said that in total they have confiscated goods and money worth 18m lei (£3.2m). Tate’s lawyer, Eugen Vidineac, who has previously said there was “no evidence” against his client and Tate was merely “playing a character” on social media, was not immediately available for comment.
Tate, 36, a dual US-British citizen, was thrown off the reality show Big Brother in 2016 and became notorious for his misogynistic remarks and hate speech. He has said women are partially responsible for being raped and that they “belong” to men.
He claims to be a multimillionaire, and to “teach the deserving the secrets to modern wealth creation” via “Hustler’s University”, an online coaching service that claims to have more than 160,000 paying customers.
After amassing millions of followers on social media, prompting fears that his videos were radicalising young men, he was eventually banned from all major platforms, but reinstated on Twitter – where his account has 4.7m followers – last November, after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company.
Prosecutors launched their investigation last March after one of the brothers allegedly raped a trafficked woman. Tate and his brother, 34, are accused of recruiting their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a romantic relationship.
The victims were then allegedly taken to properties outside Bucharest where they were forced “through physical violence, mental intimidation and coercion” to produce pornographic content for social media sites, generating large profits.
More than a dozen mobile phones and computer equipment “intended for videochat activities” have been recovered from several properties searched by investigators, prosecutors said in an update on the case last week.
The prosecution has so far identified six victims, including minors. The two Romanian women, Georgiana Naghel and Alexandra Luana, a former police officer, are suspected of having acted as the brothers’ accomplices.
English (US)