Climate denier Andrew Tate arrested for human trafficking after Greta Thunberg Twitter spat

Romanian police arrested former kickboxing champion-turned-influencer Andrew Tate late Thursday over his alleged involvement in a human trafficking ring that forced women to record pornographic material for subsequent distribution. Tate, a British-American, was detained along with his brother Tristan on suspicion of duping women into accompanying them to a villa in the wealthy town of Voluntari, on the outskirts of Budapest, where they were then exploited according to Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT.

In addition to the two brothers, Romanian agents detained two other men, Romanian nationals, who are accused of forcing women into sexual relations that they filmed and then distributed on the internet for profit, the DIICOT said in a statement. Although the authorities did not initially release the names of the detainees, Romanian media subsequently identified them as Andrew and Tristan Tate. Through acts of physical violence, coercion and intimidation, constant surveillance and invoking alleged debts, the network “recruited and exploited young people to create pornographic videos for distribution in exchange for a fee on specialized websites, especially OnlyFans,” the Romanian Prosecutor’s Office stated. This led the network to obtain “substantial sums of money.”

Although the operation against the network was initiated last April, Tate’s arrest came just a few hours after he engaged in a social media spat with environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Tate had been banned from Twitter before the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, readmitted him in November. The same week, Tate, a noted misogynist and climate change denier, attempted to get a rise out of Thunberg by offering to send her a list of his collection of 33 cars and the emissions they create. The activist’s response had garnered 3.4 million likes by Friday: “yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com.”

The four suspects, who are being held for an initial 24 hours that could be extended to 30 days with a judicial order, are accused of setting up an organized criminal group “on Romanian territory” in 2021, although the network’s activities in other countries including the United States and the United Kingdom are also under investigation. The group is suspected of tricking women in both countries into traveling to Romania, where the gang members had been living for some time. Once there, the women would be offered marriage. The Tate brothers are suspected of obtaining vast amounts of money through the scheme, with which they bought houses, luxury automobiles and cryptocurrency. The investigation was initiated when the specialist unit began to investigate the case of a young American woman kidnapped in Voluntari by the brothers, police said.

The investigation has so far led to the identification of six victims who fell prey to the network. One was allegedly raped twice in March by one of the gang members. Organized Crime and Terrorism agents waited for the brothers to return to Romania before acting. In images broadcast after the arrests, tactical Romanian Gendarmerie officers are shown raiding the villa and other locations to carry out the detentions.

Tate became famous after appearing on the British version of television show Big Brother, from which he was expelled after posting a video of himself hitting a woman. In response to Thunberg’s tweet, Tate posted another video sitting in a room and smoking a cigar: “Releasing greenhouse gases,” he says, while asking someone off-camera to “bring me pizza, but make sure the cardboard hasn’t been recycled.” After Tate’s arrest, Thunberg tweeted: “This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”

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