Andrew Tate Makes Another Offer To Be Released From Prison: Influencer Hits Court In Romania

Social media influencer and former kickboxer Andrew Tate made a strange triangle-shaped hand gesture as he arrived at an appeals court in Bucharest today, where he is being held on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking.

Tate, 36, a British-American citizen known for his misogynistic views who has 5.2 million followers on Twitter, arrived at the Bucharest Court of Appeal handcuffed to his brother Tristan, who is being held in the same case.

The brothers were seen arriving this morning after being transported in a police van. As Andrew Tate got out of the vehicle and walked toward the courthouse, he made a triangle shape with his thumbs and index fingers, still handcuffed.

The couple were photographed again a few hours later leaving court, suggesting that they had made their case and that judges were now deliberating the brother’s challenge to a decision that extended his detention by 30 days.

Two Romanian women in the case are also under house arrest and were also seen arriving at court in handcuffs.

The Tates, who were initially detained in Bucharest in late December, are seeking to overturn the judge’s February 21 decision to extend their detention by 30 days for a third time. If the court rules again against them on Monday, they will remain in custody until at least the end of March while the investigation continues.

The brothers have already lost two previous appeals against previous 30-day extensions that have kept them behind bars while investigations continue.

They are being held with Luana Radu, 32, a former police officer in Bucharest, and Georgiana Naghel, 28, a model believed to have been dating Tate for nearly a year. The two models are under house arrest.

None of the four have yet been formally charged.

A document explaining an earlier decision to keep the Tates in jail says the judge took into account the “particular dangerousness of the defendants” and their ability to identify victims “with greater vulnerability, seeking better opportunities for life”.

Tate, who has lived in Romania since 2017, was previously banned from various social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech.

He has repeatedly claimed that Romanian prosecutors have no evidence and claimed that his case is a ‘political’ conspiracy designed to silence him.

Romania’s organized crime agency said in a statement after the December arrests that it had identified six victims in the human trafficking case who were subjected to “acts of physical violence and mental coercion” and were sexually exploited by members of the alleged criminal group.

The agency said the victims were lured under pretenses of love and then intimidated, placed under surveillance and subjected to other control tactics.

This was while he was being forced to engage in pornographic acts for the financial benefit of the criminal group, the agency says.

In January, Romanian authorities stormed a compound near Bucharest linked to the Tate brothers and seized a fleet of luxury cars that included a Rolls-Royce, a Ferrari and a Porsche.

They reported the seizure of assets worth an estimated $3.9m (£3.2m).

Prosecutors have said that if they can prove the owners of the cars made money through illegal activities such as human smuggling, the assets would be used to cover the costs of the investigation and to compensate the victims.

Tate also unsuccessfully appealed against the asset seizure.

While Tate maintains his innocence, Romanian DIICOT prosecutors said in a statement that they had identified six victims in the human trafficking case.

They said the alleged victims were kept under constant supervision against their will at the armed safe house near Bucharest and forced to make pornographic content to share online.

They claim that the women were sexually exploited, physically abused and mentally coerced (‘through intimidation, […] control and invocation of alleged debts’) by members of the group for profit.

Prosecutors say they recruited victims by seducing them and falsely saying they wanted to marry or be in a relationship.

His alleged accomplices, Radu and Naghel They face human trafficking charges and are accused of being Tate’s closest lieutenants, helping to ‘coerce’ and ‘control’ at least six women into creating pornographic content on social media while under house arrest.

Last month, the Bucharest Court of Appeal heard Andrew Tate’s defense against allegations that he raped a woman who stayed with him in the Eastern European country between November 2021 and April 2022.

Romanian media loafer reported that the woman asked to move to Romania with him and filed a rape complaint nearly six months later when he refused to give her money to buy a house and become a TikTok star.

The woman reportedly had a drug addiction when they met at the strip club she worked at in London.

Tate said he allowed the woman to move to Romania alone with him.

Tate was arrested after an online dispute with climate activist Greta Thunberg.

A viral online war of words between the two saw the misogynistic influencer flaunt his collection of exhaust-belching cars.

“Please provide your email address so I can send you a complete list of my car collection and their respective huge releases,” he tweeted, tagging Miss Thunberg.

She replied: ‘Yes, please enlighten me. email me at smalld***energy@getalife.com’.

Tate then posted a video on social media featuring a pizza from a Romanian pizza chain. Some speculated that this allowed authorities to confirm that she was in the country, although this has since been discredited.

However, Thunberg later tweeted: “this is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”

In a podcast prior to his arrest, when asked why he initially moved to Romania, Tate said “being able to evade rape charges” was his motivation.

He added: ‘I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of ​​being able to do what I want. I like to be free.

Expressed in podcasts and shared online, Andrew Tate’s views on women, masculinity and entrepreneurship became popular in 2022 when they were shared in short clips on social media.

Eventually, he was banned from various platforms for misogyny and hate speech.