CNN
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Influencer Andrew Tate and brother Tristan will remain in police custody until Feb. 27 after a Romanian court extended their custody on Friday, Tate’s attorney told CNN affiliate Antenna 3. .
The brothers are under investigation for alleged human trafficking and rape.
Romanian authorities said police had issued five house search warrants and detained four suspects, two British and two Romanian, as part of the investigation.
Romania’s Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) initially said the four suspects had been in custody for 24 hours. A court in Bucharest has accepted his DIICOT application to detain Tate and his brother Tristan for an additional 30 days, their attorney Eugen Vidineac said on his Dec. 30. This again he extended until 27 February.
DIICOT alleged that the four suspects formed an organized crime group extending from Romania to the United Kingdom and the United States to commit crimes of human trafficking.
The agency said last Thursday that seven more properties were searched as part of the investigation, bringing the total number of properties surveyed to 12.
Authorities said two of the suspects transported the victims to Romania, where they subsequently sexually exploited them through physical violence and coercion, while “intending to enter into a marriage/cohabitation relationship.” I made you believe that,” he claims.
Authorities also said one of the suspects raped the victim twice in March 2022. At least six of her victims were allegedly “sexually exploited by organized crime groups,” according to DIICOT’s statement.
On Monday, Romanian authorities announced they had seized about $4 million worth of assets belonging to Tate over the past week. Among his 29 assets seized were a car, a luxury watch and amounts denominated in several different currencies, the country’s Asset Recovery and Administration Agency (ANABI) said.
A former professional kickboxer, Tate is known for ranting about male dominance, female submission, and wealth online. He openly advocates violence against women and was banned from all major social media his platforms until he revived his Twitter account after Elon Musk took over the company.
He came to prominence earlier this year, with many adults, including schoolteachers, warning that his misogynistic ideas have taken root in the minds of countless boys. Before being deleted, his TikTok account had amassed around 11.6 billion views.
He made headlines the week he was arrested for a Twitter exchange with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. He told Tate to spare his life after tweeting about his numerous cars and the “huge emissions of each.”
