Andrew Tate lost an appeal of Romanian authorities’ seizure of his assets, including luxury cars and property, in connection with their investigation into charges of human trafficking and rape against the polarizing social-media figure.
Tate, a former champion kickboxer, internet entrepreneur and self-proclaimed misogynist, was arrested on Dec. 29 in Bucharest along with his brother Tristan. On Tuesday, a Romanian court upheld a judge’s ruling to extend the Tates’ arrest from 24 hours to 30 days. Romanian prosecutors are said to be investigating the Tates for allegedly recruiting and detaining women to produce pornographic videos, distributed via sites like OnlyFans.
In a hearing Wednesday, Tate lost an appeal seeking to block prosecutors’ seizure of his assets, according to Romanian anti-organized crime agency Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), the Associated Press reported. The court “decided that the seizures are legal and [that] the goods remain at our disposal,” DIICOT spokesperson Ramona Bolla said.
Romanian prosecutors investigating the Tates have so far seized 15 luxury cars and more than 10 properties and land owned by companies registered to the brothers, according to DIICOT. If prosecutors can prove the Tates gained money through human trafficking, the assets “could be used to cover the expenses of the investigation and compensation for victims,” according to the AP report, citing the agency.
Following Tuesday’s ruling, prosecutors can now request detentions of up to 180 days for the Tates as well as two Romanian women who were also charged in the investigation. Regarding the court’s denial of the brothers’ appeal of the 30-day arrest, Eugen Vidineac, a lawyer representing the Tates, said in a statement to Romanian news publication Gândul, “I am very disappointed. The measure seems excessive to me.”
Tate rose to fame in 2016 as a guest on the British reality show “Big Brother.” He drew criticism for homophobic and racist comments made on Twitter, which banned him in 2017. Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in a $44 billion deal, in November reinstated Tate’s Twitter account — which has 4.5 million followers — along with those of thousands of others who had been banned.
Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested two days after Andrew tried to troll climate activist Greta Thunberg in a tweet boasting about his fleet of 33 cars. “Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions,” he wrote, to which Thunberg responded, “Yes, please do enlighten me. Email me at [email protected].” Tate subsequently responded to Thunberg in a video posted on Twitter, in which he at pizza from a box labeled Jerry’s Pizza, a Romanian restaurant chain. A DIICOT spokesperson shot down speculation that authorities had located Andrew Tate based on the pizza video.
Last summer, Tate was banned by multiple major internet services, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch, for violating their policies against hate speech. In an interview on Fox Nation’s “Tucker Carlson Today,” Tate claimed the tech platforms booted him because of his “traditional masculine values.”
In 2017, in a post that led to his Twitter ban at the time, Tate wrote, “[I]f you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bare [sic] some responsibility. I’m not saying it’s OK you got raped. No woman should be abused regardless. However with sexual assault they want to put zero blame on the victim whatsoever.”
Pictured above: Andrew Tate (l.) and Tristan Tate leave the Bucharest Court of Appeal after the Jan. 10 hearing on their appeal to the decision of arrest for 30 days
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