BUCHAREST: Social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate will remain in police custody till February 27. This comes as a Romanian court on Friday extended their detention, Tate’s lawyers told CNN affiliate Antena 3.
The brothers are currently being investigated on allegations of human trafficking and rape.
According to Romanian authorities, the police served search warrants at five homes and took four suspects into custody, two Britons and two Romanians, as part of the investigation.
Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) initially said the four suspects had been detained for 24 hours.
A Bucharest court, however, accepted an application by DIICOT to hold Tate and his brother Tristan in custody for a further 30 days, their lawyer Eugen Vidineac said on December 30. The custody has now been extended to February 27, CNN reported.
DIICOT said the four suspects in order to commit the crime of human trafficking, formed an organized criminal group that stretched from Romania to Britain and the United States.
Recently, seven more properties have been searched as part of the investigation, bringing the total number of properties probed to 12.
Authorities say that two of the suspects misled the police “into believing that they intended to enter into a marriage/cohabitation relationship” while transporting victims to Romania and later sexually exploiting them with physical violence and coercion, CNN reported.
One of the suspects, according to authorities, raped a victim on two separate occasions in March 2022. A DIICOT statement said that: “At least six victims were allegedly sexually exploited by the organized criminal group.”
Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania on December 30 along with his brother Tristan Tate over an investigation in a human trafficking case.
According to reports, DIICOT was responsible for the raid. Citing the Romanian news outlet Libertatea, Sport Bible reported that his home was searched in connection with the kidnapping of two girls.
Tate, who is famous for his controversial behaviour on social media, is a former kickboxer with 76 wins and nine losses in his kickboxing career, as per the UK-based Sports Bible.
The social media influencer was in the news recently after he got involved in a heated spat with Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter, which later went viral.
Tate, who is well-known for his many misogynistic remarks, started the argument by tagging Thunberg in a tweet about his 33 vehicles and their emissions, which contribute to pollution, according to New York Post.
Taking to Twitter, Tate wrote, “Hello @GretaThunberg I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad-turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”
To which, Thunberg responded with a stinging jab and wrote “yes, please do enlighten me. email me at [email protected],” she replied in a quote tweet. (ANI)