Tate Brothers file was sent to court. They are accused of human trafficking, rape and being part of a criminal group

The criminal file of controversial social media star Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, in which they are accused by Romania’s anti-mafia prosecutors (DIICOT) of human trafficking in continuous form, rape in continuous form, being part of a criminal group, altering the integrity of computer data and violence was sent to court for trial on Tuesday.

According to DIICOT, the prosecutors requested the confiscation of „15 sites and buildings located in Ilfov, Brașov, Prahova counties and Bucharest, 14 luxury watches, 86.580 RON, 52.650 EUR, $17.430, 10.370 pounds and 21 Bitcoins (with an approximated value of 384.000 dollars)”.

On December 30, the Tate Brothers, but also two Romanian females – Luana Radu, former policeman in Bucharest and Georgiana Naghel, Andrew’s girlfriend – were put under preventive arrest by DIICOT, the anti-mafia prosecutor’s office.

They spent the subsequent three months in a police detention facility in Bucharest, and at the end of March won an appeal against an extension of the measure to instead place them under house arrest.

The Tate brothers are accused in a case that stretches to the beginning of 2021, of exploiting at least 6 female victims using the lover boy` method — a form of coercive behavior in which victims are misled into false promises that their partners love them. Last week, however, DIICOT added a seventh victim to the case.

Prosecutors stated that the victims would’ve been “transported and sheltered” in premises near Bucharest “by the means of violence and mental constraint (intimidation, constant surveillance, control and mentioning so-called debts)”.  They victims were then forced to perform pornographic material on websites such as OnlyFans, prosectors’ allege.

Tate Brothers’ victims, who were recruited from Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, were allegedly forced to spend up to 12 hours a day livestreaming sexual performances, permitted only to a 5-minute break.

Victims were also forced into tattooing the names or faces of either of the brothers as a sign of so-called loyalty, according to the prosecutors.

Other accusations brought against the Tate Brothers is that one of the victims allegedly got „punished” by violence in 2021, after she refused to continue to publish pornographic material, and that „one of the defendants” would’ve accessed it’s phone and posted on the social networks compromising images of her.

Citing a court document from one of the preventive arrest trials, a judge said that human trafficking should be considered a crime “with the most horrible consequences” known to humanity, and that it should be hasrhly punished.

A quote attributed to one of the Tate brothers was also mentioned in the judge’s decision. “women understand how to use the judicial system to punish men and I believe that the accusations against me are by those jealous females, who never knew anything else but to ask money from me,” it read.

“This comes in the context in which every victim from this cause asked the defendant for attention and love, request which was conditioned by engaging in activities that would earn revenue for the defendant”, according to the source we cited.

At the beginning of 2023, BBC stated that at least one of the victims was allegedly blackmailed in the US by the two brothers to drop the accusations, and threatened to sue them for $300 million.

The Tate Brothers case highlights the fact that Romania continues to be a primary source for human trafficking victims, according to the last report published by the US State Department.

Our colleagues from Rise Project presented earlier this month an investigation which revealed that the Tate brother own businesses in Romania, including 6 casinos in Bucharest, and are close associates of one of Romania’s most influential criminal groups.

The Tate Brothers case will begin at the Court of Bucharest.

Photo credit: Inquam Photos/ Octav Ganea