Andrew Tate, an internet personality with six million Twitter followers, who is under house arrest in Romania on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, appeared at prosecutors’ offices on Monday for forensic searches of electronic equipment confiscated during investigations, his lawyer said.
In late December, authorities in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, detained Tate, his brother Tristan, and two Romanian women. Tate, a British-U.S. citizen, was among those detained.
No one has formally indicted any of the four yet.
While the Tates attended, the anti-organized crime agency of Romania, DIICOT, carried out forensic searches at their Bucharest offices.
On March 31, the court granted their appeal to be moved from police custody to house arrest, and they will continue to stay there until at least April 29.
Since authorities detained them, prosecutors have already conducted several device searches.
The Tates left the DIICOT offices on Monday to a scrum of media and a handful of supporters who chanted “Top-G!”—one of the monikers used by his fans.
Tristan Tate told reporters he was “always ok.” Prosecutors have seized “a lot of devices” in the case, and they’re “still looking for the information, even now,” said Eugen Vidineac, the lawyer representing the Tates.
Vidineac stated that the authorities must conduct the searches in the presence of the Tates, even under home arrest, and he also expressed respect for the job of the prosecutor and the authorities. He stated that they are letting the investigators do their job and await the results of the investigation.
Andrew Tate’s Twitter following
Since his release from police detention, Andrew Tate ’s Twitter followers have increased by at least 500,000. A tweet that appeared on his account Sunday read: “The world makes a lot more sense once you understand that most people don’t even want to be free.”
Various social media platforms had banned Tate, a professional kickboxer who has resided in Romania since 2017, for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech.
In a statement following the December arrests, DIICOT identified six victims in the human trafficking case who members of the alleged crime group allegedly subjected to acts of physical violence, mental coercion, and sexual exploitation. The group reportedly lured victims with pretenses of love, placed them under surveillance, and used other control tactics to coerce them into engaging in pornographic acts for financial gain.
According to the agency, members of the alleged crime group lured victims with pretenses of love, intimidated them, placed them under surveillance, and subjected them to other control tactics while coercing them into engaging in pornographic acts for the financial gain of the group.
