The Tate brothers were detained Monday evening in Romania after a British police force secured a European arrest warrant.
The arrest warrant stems from charges in Britain that include “allegations of sexual aggression” from 2012 through 2015, according to the statement from the Tate brothers.
Asked about the case, a spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said that “as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of rape and human trafficking, Bedfordshire Police has obtained an arrest warrant for two men in their 30s. We are working with authorities in Romania as part of this investigation.”
In a separate case, Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania with his brother in December 2022 on charges of rape and human trafficking. He was released from house arrest last August after months in detention.
The brothers — as well as two Romanian female suspects also accused of running a trafficking ring — were required to remain in the country as that case proceeds and to report regularly to a police station, according to a judicial ruling. Romanian prosecutors had indicted them in June, referring the case for trial. They deny the charges.
Tuesday’s statement from the Tate brothers said they reject the U.K. charges and “express profound disappointment that such serious allegations are being resurrected without substantial new evidence,” years after being dismissed by Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service. The service did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday.
Andrew Tate faced a number of sexual assault allegations in the U.K., where he and his brother had run an adult webcam business before moving to Romania.
The Romanian police on Tuesday did not specify which charges prompted the warrant from British authorities.
McCue Jury & Partners, a London-based law firm, said it was representing four British women who accuse Andrew Tate of rape and serious physical and sexual assaults during the same period as the charges in the warrant. It said in a statement Tuesday that it had urged British police to “immediately seek a warrant” for Tate’s detention and extradition after concerns that he may try to flee Romania.
“Today’s news is very welcome as it had been a significant concern to many that Tate would seek to avoid justice in Romania and abroad,” said Matthew Jury, a managing partner at the firm.
Eugen Vidineac, a lawyer representing the Tate brothers, said in a statement: “We appreciate the Bucharest Court of Appeal’s decision to postpone the extradition of Andrew and Tristan Tate.
“This ruling provides an opportunity for the brothers to participate fully in their defense and for the legal process to proceed in a transparent manner,” the statement said.
The lawyer also said that they “unequivocally deny any accusations that Andrew or Tristan Tate intends to abscond from Romania to evade the judicial proceedings.”
“We believe this rumor has originated from a popular online influencer who misconstrued a text message from our clients while streaming live. There is simply no truth to it.”
Adin Ross, a popular American live-streamer, inadvertently publicized the Tates’ alleged plan to leave Romania, according to Jennifer Sayles, an attorney at McCue.
In an undated live-stream clip archived online, Ross can be seen telling his large audience that Andrew Tate had invited him to Romania to make video content with him, telling Ross he was about to leave the country, and it was “now or never.”
“Andrew had hit me up, he said, ‘Hey, I’m going to be leaving Romania soon, and probably never coming back,’ ” Ross said in the video. Sayles told The Washington Post that Ross’s comments prompted her firm to warn British authorities that Tate could be planning to flee Romania. Ross didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer who built an online persona around hyper-masculinity that drew millions of followers, has dual British and American citizenship. Tate was raised in the United States but moved to Bedfordshire, England, after his parents divorced.
He has said that people who are raped “bear some responsibility” and that women are the property of their husbands, and has been banned from several social media platforms over misogynist remarks. Fans have called him the “king of toxic masculinity.”
The 2022 trafficking case against him in Romania was triggered when the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest tipped off Romanian police that an American citizen was being held against her will in a property belonging to the Tates. Tate has portrayed the investigation as an attempt to curb his influence.
Loveday Morris contributed to this report.
