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Andrew Tate (l) and his brother Tristan are accused of sexually exploiting young women.
© Vadim Ghirda/AP/dpa
In Romania, the influencer Andrew Tate, who is known for macho sayings, and his brother Tristan are facing trial for sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
Now Great Britain is getting involved too.
Bucharest - Andrew Tate has made a name for himself with misogynistic statements on social networks.
The 37-year-old enjoyed celebrating his wealth with stylish sports cars and big cigars, and showed himself to be a thinker when playing chess - and thereby particularly reached teenagers and young men.
Now the British-American influencer and his brother Tristan (35) have been arrested again in Romania - on the basis of a European arrest warrant that Great Britain had obtained.
Both are now to be extradited from Romania to Great Britain.
This was decided by the appeal court in the Romanian capital Bucharest, the British news agency PA quoted a spokeswoman for the brothers as saying.
The men are charged in Romania with human trafficking and exploitation of young women.
They are said to have committed similar crimes in Great Britain.
The Tates deny the allegations.
Lots of imitators at schools
Andrew Tate is now blocked from YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok.
But on X (formerly Twitter) millions follow him.
In Great Britain he is considered the epitome of so-called toxic masculinity.
A number of students imitate his gestures and comments, so that the fear of an increasingly misogynistic atmosphere increases.
As the Guardian newspaper recently reported, the opposition Labor Party is considering training male influencers to counteract "Tate-ization" in schools with positive role models if they win the election.
The two men were initially arrested for 24 hours late on Monday evening in the village of Voluntari near Bucharest.
The appeal court in Bucharest was due to decide on Tuesday whether to enforce the international arrest warrant.
The brothers strictly deny the allegations from the period between 2012 and 2015, as the British news agency PA quoted from a statement from their lawyer.
The fact that allegations of sexual assault have resurfaced now that Andrew Tate is famous raises serious questions about the reasons for this move.
Evidence of escape risk
The Tate brothers and two suspected accomplices were arrested for the first time on December 30, 2022 near Bucharest.
Three months later, this measure was converted into house arrest.
The defendants had been at large since August 2023 - with the restriction that they were not allowed to leave Romania.
There has been no court hearing so far.
This involves different allegations than those in the European arrest warrant.
A British law firm representing four alleged victims of sexual violence by the Tates in Britain said it had informed British police of indications that the brothers wanted to flee Romania.
The British authorities then reacted.
In Romania, the Tates and their accomplices are accused of forcing young women to take part in commercially distributed sex videos.
To do this, they are said to have used the so-called lover boy method: they used manipulation techniques to make the girls dependent on themselves.
Accusations of abuse and rape
Romanian investigators had identified seven victims, three of whom are plaintiffs in the proceedings.
In Tate's villa in Voluntari there was a video chat studio guarded by armed men where the sex scenes were filmed and published online on adult platforms.
A woman wanted to escape from this villa in October 2021 and was “punished” with beatings by one of Tate’s accomplices on his orders, Romanian media reported, citing the investigators.
Another woman was raped by Tate in March 2022.
Andrew Tate became famous in 2016 when he was kicked out of the British “Big Brother” show after a video of him hitting a woman with a belt became public.
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Romania's public prosecutor's office had large parts of the Tate brothers' considerable assets confiscated: 15 properties in the greater Bucharest area and in the mountainous region of the Prahova Valley and Brasov, which is popular with tourists, 15 luxury cars, 14 luxury watches, precious metals, shares in four companies, money and Crypto coins.
But in January, a court ruled that Tate's valuables had to be returned.
dpa