A court in Bucharest imposed the detention on Friday evening after five hours of interrogation and three hours of deliberations, as reported by the Romanian media, citing the authorities. Those arrested now have 48 hours to appeal the detention.
Serious allegations
The evening before, the brothers and the two Romanian accomplices were arrested in the Bucharest area. Investigators accuse the former kickboxer and his brother of using physical violence and mental coercion to force women to take part in porn clips. According to a statement by the Romanian Agency for Combating Organized Crime (DIICOT), the six victims identified so far were recruited using the “loverboy method”. They were lured with promises of love and marriage.
After that, the women and girls were held with violence and intimidation in different apartments around Bucharest. There they were forced to have sex and appear in pornographic videos, which were then distributed on social networks. One of the victims was also raped twice by one of those arrested.
In addition to the two Britons, Romanian helpers are also being investigated, local media reported. A former police officer is said to be among the suspects. Weapons, cash and luxury cars were seized during the raids, according to a video released by the police. The Tate’s home was searched in April for similar allegations.
“The Matrix Has Sent Its Agents”
The British newspaper “Daily Mirror” quoted a spokesman for Tate as saying that details of reports about the arrest could not be given at the moment. “However, Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will help where they can.”
Tate tweeted on Friday from Bucharest police custody: “The Matrix sent their agents.” The 36-year-old probably wanted to imply that he was a victim of a conspiracy. In the 1999 film The Matrix, there is a pill offered to hacker Neo (Keanu Reeves) so that he can access the real world beyond the art world (the Matrix). Right-wing extremist conspiracy theorists, but also misogynistic “men’s rights activists” use this image of real reality, which has to be recognized in order to justify untruth and “fake news” as an act of resistance.
Twitter dispute with Thunberg
The ex-kickboxer has been banned from numerous social media platforms for his misogynistic and hateful comments. He was also unable to post on Twitter for years – until the new Twitter boss Elon Musk lifted the ban. In the past few days, the 36-year-old had been fighting with climate activist Thunberg.
Tate addressed Thunberg directly in a tweet boasting about his car collection and its emissions. The Swede then made fun of the 36-year-old. The tweet spread like wildfire on the platform, which was followed by a video reply from Tate – in a red bathrobe, cigar in mouth.
Confusion about roll of pizza box
The clip showed a pizza box with Romanian inscriptions, which the police are rumored to have tracked down. However, on December 25, Tate tweeted a video that he claims was taken during a hike in Romania. According to the police report, the online activities of Tate and his brother Tristan, who was also arrested, gave investigators the indication that the two Britons were in the country.
With a view to media reports that this pizza box gave an indication of Tate’s whereabouts, the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office DIICOT said when asked by dpa: “These are amusing speculations.” Thunberg meanwhile followed up on Twitter and wrote on Friday: “It happens if you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”
Long list of misogynist statements
Tate was born in the US capital Washington and grew up in Luton, England. His father was the chess professional Emory Tate. The former kickboxer rose to fame in 2016 as a short-time participant in the British edition of “Big Brother”. He was forced to leave the show after a video surfaced of Tate hitting a woman with a belt. Tate explained at the time that the shot had been altered to cast him in a lopsided light.
In social networks, the ex-athlete presented himself as a macho and self-help guru for young men and men with a penchant for expensive cars. He became notorious for misogynist statements. He explained that rape victims are partly to blame for the attacks. In videos he indulged in fantasies of violence against women. He himself prefers 18- or 19-year-old partners because he can still “put his stamp on” women of this age. He also described women as man’s property and denied them the ability to drive a car.
Links to the extreme right
Despite his hateful and misogynistic comments, Tate has been hugely successful on social media. According to the Guardian, his videos have been viewed more than eleven billion times on the TikTok platform, from which he has since been banned, followed by 740,000 Tates Channel accounts on YouTube. In 2022, the 36-year-old was one of the most searched people on Google. Tate has now been blocked by Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, but his videos continue to circulate.
A targeted campaign played a large part in Tate’s meteoric rise on social media, the British newspaper Observer reported in the summer. With the help of members of Tate’s online academy and their own accounts, TikTok’s algorithm was manipulated in favor of Tate, the newspaper wrote. The online academy, which has now been shut down according to the “Observer”, recently had almost 130,000 participants, some of whom were very young, who paid around 47 euros a month for their membership.
Tate also had ties to the extreme right and conspiracy theorists. He is a supporter of the “Red Pill Theory” and was a guest on the Alex Jones podcast. He invited Mike Cernovich, among others, to his own podcast. During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, Cernovich spread the conspiracy theory known as “Pizzagate”, according to which a child porn ring involving the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was operating in a Washington DC pizzeria.
