British-American influencer Andrew Tate has been arrested in Romania on suspicion of rape and human trafficking. This was confirmed to the dpa by the special unit responsible for organized crime at the Romanian public prosecutor's office, DIICOT.
Tate's brother and two Romanians were also arrested after DIICOT conducted five house searches in Bucharest and the surrounding area. The four suspects are said to have trafficked in human beings in Romania and also in the USA and Great Britain since the beginning of 2021 and forced women into prostitution.
The Loverboy Method
According to a statement by DIICOT, the six victims identified so far were recruited using the so-called 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 shared on social media. One of the victims was also raped twice by one of those arrested.
The British newspaper "Daily Mirror" quoted a spokesman for Tate as saying that no details could be given at the moment about the corresponding reports about the arrest. "However, Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will help where they can."
Twitter-Beef mit Greta Thunberg
Andrew Tate recently had a skirmish with climate activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter. Tate, who repeatedly attracts attention with misogynist statements, had boasted about the number of his cars and wrote to Thunberg: "Please give me your email address so that I can send you a complete list of my car collection and the enormous emissions."
The pioneer of the global climate protection movement Fridays for Future reacted on Wednesday: "Yes, please enlighten me, write to me at kleinpenisenergie@hastdunichtsbessereszutun.com." From the point of view of many Twitter users, that was the case - on Friday morning Thunberg's post had 3.2 million "likes" - the former kickboxer's post had a good 200,000.
Tate then mocked the 19-year-old in a video smoking a cigar. A pizza box from Romania can also be seen in the video. With regard to media reports that this pizza box gave an indication of Tate's whereabouts, the spokeswoman for the DIICOT public prosecutor's office said when asked by dpa: "These are amusing speculations." It is not true that the box played a role in the arrest.
The Tate brothers had lived in Romania for years, Romanian tabloid Libertatea reported. Tristan Tate, the brother of the influencer Andrew who has now also been arrested, also had a relationship with a Romanian star model, according to "Libertatea".
Thunberg meanwhile followed up on Twitter and wrote on Friday: "This is what happens when you don't recycle your pizza boxes." Within minutes, the tweet was liked tens of thousands of times.
