CNN
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Romanian authorities said they seized nearly $4 million worth of assets belonging to controversial Internet personality Andrew Tate over the past week as he and his brother are investigated over allegations of human trafficking and rape.
About 18 million lei (equivalent to 3 million 942 thousand 700 dollars) were seized, the country’s Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ANABI) said. said in a press release on Saturday.
According to ANABI, among the 29 confiscated assets are motor vehicles, luxury watches and sums of money in various currencies.
According to ANABI, the arrests were made on the instructions of the prosecutors of the Investigative Department of Organized Crime and Terrorism.
Video released by Reuters on Saturday showed Romanian authorities seizing several high-value cars, including a Rolls Royce, BMW and Mercedes Benz, at a building decorated with a large “Tate” sign.
Andrew and his brother Tristan Tate were detained in Romania in December as prosecutors pursued allegations of human trafficking and rape. Romanian authorities said police have issued search warrants for five men and detained four suspects – two British and two Romanians – as part of the investigation.
Romania’s Directorate for Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) said four suspects were detained in the initial 24 hours. On December 30, their lawyer Eugen Vidineac said that the Bucharest court accepted DIICOT’s application to detain Tate and his brother Tristan for another 30 days.
DIICOT alleged that the four suspects formed an organized crime group stretching from Romania to England and the United States to commit the crime of human trafficking.
Seven more properties were searched as part of the investigation, bringing the total number of properties under investigation to 12, the agency said Thursday.
Authorities allege that two of the suspects tricked the victims “into a marriage/cohabitation relationship” while driving them to Romania and then sexually abusing them through physical violence and coercion.
Authorities also said one of the suspects raped the victim in two separate incidents in March 2022. At least six victims were allegedly “sexually exploited by an organized criminal group,” DIICOT said in a statement.
Tate, a former professional kickboxer, is known for her viral online rants about male dominance, female submissiveness and wealth. She openly advocates violence against women and was previously banned from all major social media platforms until Twitter reinstated her account after Elon Musk took over the company.
It gained notoriety earlier this year when many adults, including school teachers, sounded the alarm about the misogynistic ideas that were taking root in the minds of countless young men. Before it was deleted, her TikTok account had nearly 11.6 billion views.
He made headlines the week he was arrested for his Twitter link with Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who told Tate to get a life after she tweeted about her multiple cars “and their corresponding massive waste”.
There was speculation online that authorities were alerted to Tate’s presence in Romania when a special pizza box appeared in one of the photos he posted during his spat with Thunberg.
However, according to Reuters, a DIICOT spokesperson said the pizza boxes played no role in the arrests.
