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Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate with emergency services in Bucharest
Photo:
INQUAM PHOTOS/Octav Ganea / REUTERS
According to various media reports, the controversial online influencer Andrew Tate has been arrested in Romania.
The police have been investigating him for human trafficking and rape since April, according to the BBC and "Bild".
Photos show emergency services escorting Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate.
Police officers are also said to have searched the brothers' house in Bucharest.
A lawyer for Andrew and Tristan Tate confirmed the arrest, according to Reuters news agency.
The former kickboxer rose to fame in 2016 when he was kicked out of British TV show Big Brother for a video that appeared to show him attacking a woman.
Again and again he was noticed because of derogatory comments about women.
Just a few days ago, Tate attracted attention when he wanted to provoke climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Tate tweeted to Thunberg that he had 33 cars, including a Bugatti and two Ferraris.
He would be happy to send her a complete list of his cars, including their enormous climate emissions.
All you have to do is give him your email address.
Thunberg countered confidently.
She responded via Twitter with the words: "Please enlighten me, email me kleinpenisenergie@hastdunichtsbessereszutun.com." She received 3.1 million likes for her post.
Tate felt provoked and thanked Thunberg for confirming that she had a small penis.
In a video Tate posted, he smokes a cigar.
Then he has two pizzas brought to him, the boxes of which, as he says, should not be made of recycled cardboard.
The pizzas are brought to him and they have the name of the pizza shop and a QR code printed on them.
And this was Tate's undoing, as "Bild" reports.
According to this, the police have been looking for Andrew and Tristan Tate for several months, but lost their track in Romania.
With the help of the pizza boxes, the emergency services were apparently able to find the brothers.
According to Reuters, there are two other suspects in addition to the brothers.
They are said to have formed an organized crime group whose aim was to recruit, harbor and exploit women.
The women were said to have been forced to create pornographic content that could be viewed on special websites for a fee, prosecutors said, according to Reuters.
In August, Meta had blocked Tate's profiles on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, told the BBC that Tate's content violated the terms of use and was therefore blocked.
Tate also blocked the video platform YouTube in the summer.
Tate was also banned from Twitter for five years.
Twitter boss Elon Musk only reactivated Tate's profile in November.
kha