Former professional kickboxer and controversial internet personality Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania on Thursday, along with his brother, Reuters reports.
Romanian prosecutors said in a statement obtained by CBS News that search warrants were executed at several homes on Thursday due to suspicions of “an organized criminal group” involved in “human trafficking and rape.”
The organized crime group was formed by four suspects in early 2021 with the aim of “committing” human trafficking in Romania, the United States and the United Kingdom in order to “obtain significant financial benefits “, prosecutors said.
Six women were found sexually exploited by the organized crime group, according to prosecutors.
Two British nationals and two Romanian citizens were arrested, prosecutors said, and taken to law enforcement headquarters in Bucharest. After questioning, it was decided that they would be detained for 24 hours, prosecutors added. There was no word on what would happen to them after that.
Reuters said this photo and others it had obtained show Andrew Tate being escorted out of law enforcement headquarters on Thursday:
INQUAM PHOTOS / Octav Ganea / REUTERS
“The four suspects (…) appear to have created an organized criminal group with the aim of recruiting, harboring and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content intended to be viewed on specialized websites for a fee”, have prosecutors said in a statement. Reuters.
Tate and his brother Tristan were among four people detained, prosecutors told Reuters.
Lawyers for the Tate brothers confirmed to Reuters that they had been taken into custody.
The two brothers have been under criminal investigation since April, Reuters reported.
Tate, who was born in the United States but raised in Britain, is known for spreading hate speech, misogyny and violence. In August he got banned Facebook and Instagram for violating Meta’s policies on dangerous organizations and individuals. It was also banned from posting on YouTube.
In 2017, he was suspended from Twitter to say women ‘bear responsibility’ for being sexually assaulted amid allegations against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein flocked. He was reinstated on Twitter last month after Elon Musk took over the business.
Earlier this week, Tate found herself in a Quarrel on Twitter with climate activist Greta Thunberg.
In response to the report on Tate’s arrest, Thunberg tweeted on Friday“That’s what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”
