Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer and online personality who regularly made misogynistic remarks about women to his large following on social media sites, was detained by authorities in Romania on Thursday in a human trafficking and rape investigation, police said.
Prosecutors from Romania’s Directorate for Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism said in a statement Thursday that two Britons and two Romanians were detained for 24 hours as part of the investigation. The statement did not name Mr Tate, but police in Romania confirmed on Friday that he and his brother Tristan, who are both British and US citizens, were among those arrested. According to the website of Mr. Tate, the brothers live in Romania.
Prosecutors said local authorities conducted searches they believed were linked to human trafficking and rape. Authorities said they are investigating whether the suspects formed a criminal group in 2021 to engage in human trafficking in Romania, the United States and Britain.
Six victims, who were allegedly forced into sexual acts, were housed in buildings outside Bucharest, prosecutors said. On two separate occasions in March, one of the suspects used force and psychological pressure to rape a victim, prosecutors said.
Mr. Tate, who is in his mid-thirties, rose to prominence in 2016 after appearing in the UK version of the reality TV show “Big Brother”. He continued to build his online presence and often made hateful comments, including that women who have been raped are partly responsible for the attacks.
Mr Tate attracted attention again this week after he got into a row on Twitter with 19-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, boasting about his collection of exotic cars and their “massive emissions” and asking for her email address. Ms. Thunberg replied with an address ending in “@getalife.com.”
There was speculation online whether a signature pizza box in one of Mr Tate’s tweets to Ms Thunberg had led authorities to him, but Ramona Bolla, a spokeswoman for the Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigation Directorate, told DailyExpertNews on Friday. that that was not the case.
It was unclear if Mr. Tate and the other suspects would be charged or if they were still in custody. But prosecutors asked a Bucharest court to extend Tate’s detention by 30 days, Reuters reported.
Mr Tate did not respond to a request for comment, but on Friday morning he tweeted“The Matrix sent their agents.”
Lawyers for Mr Tate, his brother and the other two detainees, whom authorities have not identified, could not be reached.
In August, Mr. Tate was banned from Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, all citing violations of their policies. He was also banned from Twitter for a short time, but was reinstated on the platform, where he has 3.7 million followersafter Elon Musk bought the company in October.
Stefania Matache contributed reporting from Bucharest, Romania.