Andrew Tate Detained by Romanian Authorities for Human Trafficking
And how climate activist Greta Thunberg may have played a role in this…
Internet and TV personality Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania along with his brother Tristan on Thursday, December 29th, on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organized crime group. Andrew Tate is known for his controversial stances on women and minorities, so to most, these charges weren’t much of a surprise. Tate has lived in Bucharest, Romania for five years, having left behind his home in the UK. He gave “being able to evade rape allegations” as a reason for his move to Romania. “I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free,” Tate said on the Fresh&Fit Podcast (May 21st, 2021).
Tate had been under investigation for human trafficking by Romanian authorities since April and has finally been located and detained. Police served search warrants on Thursday at five different homes and took four suspects into custody – two Romanians and two Britons (the Tate brothers) – as part of the ongoing investigation. Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) said the four suspects were initially detained for 24 hours. A Bucharest court accepted an appeal by DIICOT to hold Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate in custody for an additional month, according to their lawyer Eugen Vidineac. Vidineac confirmed that they had been detained but declined to comment further as he represented the pair in court.
DIICOT claimed that these four suspects had formed an organized crime group with ties in Romania, Britain, and the United States for human trafficking. In alignment with this, prosecutors said they found evidence Tate had sexually exploited at least six women “using physical violence and mental constraint” and were misled “into believing that they (the traffickers) intended to enter into a marriage/cohabitation relationship.” In addition, these women were forced into making pornographic content for distribution and, ultimately, financial gain for the crime organization.
Social media users claim that Andrew Tate’s recent “Twitter beef” with environmental activist Greta Thunberg has played a role in his arrest. In the past week, Tate has constantly been tweeting at Thunberg (seemingly out of the blue), poking fun at her stance on climate change by posting clips of her speeches and cutting to clips of his sports cars and him smoking cigars, to show off his carbon footprint with a “what are you gonna do about it?” sort of attitude. His most notable tweet was posted on December 27th, which read, “Hello @Greta Thunberg, 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 this, Thunberg responded, “yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalld**[email protected].” Everyone thought this was hilarious because Thunberg doesn’t have a reputation for using foul language or clapping back at hate. Hence, the shock value was enough for her to gain most of the Internet’s support.
Tate replied to her again, writing, “Thank you for confirming via your email address that you have a small p***s @GretaThunberg The world was curious. And I do agree you should get a life ❤️.” Attached to his tweet was a video of him smoking a large cigar and making concerning and sporadic claims about Greta being “programmed by the Matrix” to convince the government to tax people to stop the Sun from being hot. He also makes multiple unintelligent and scientifically incorrect statements regarding the cause of global warming, implying that climate change is happening simply because “the Sun is hot”, rather than due to the greenhouse effect fueled by human-made emissions.
Although, the most significant part of the video turned out to be when someone off camera handed him boxes of pizza and said to them, “Make sure that these boxes are not recycled,” in a feeble attempt to anger Greta. There has been some online speculation that authorities were alerted to Tate’s presence in Romania by the appearance of the Romanian pizza restaurant’s logo on the boxes in this video. Despite this claim being widely believed, a spokesperson for DIICOT said the pizza boxes did not play a role in the Tates’ detentions.
Greta Thunberg again responded, but this time to the news about the controversial influencer: “This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes,” she wrote in a tweet, seemingly to joke about how his arrest happened so close in time to their back-and-forth, almost as if he was receiving some bad karma.
As the Tate brothers await their trial, rumors and speculation continue to spiral. Andrew Tate is fueling this fire as he continues to tweet on the situation of his arrest, as well as about his psychosis-Esque beliefs on “the Matrix”. On Friday, he tweeted from his verified account, “The Matrix sent their agents,” clearly about the police who had detained him the day before. In the days following, Tate tweets similarly, writing things such as “The Matrix will only tell you what the Matrix needs you to believe” and “God is on our side, so the Matrix will not win. Inshallah.” He made a tweet on Sunday, January 1st. He pinned it to the top of his profile, which read, “…For every domain the Matrix shuts down, we have dozens ready to replace it. Find The Real World here: jointherealworld.com,” with the link leading to a site created and run by Tate. It claims to be a community for those who want to “acquire an abundance of wealth” and to be a learning platform “designed to break people free from the Matrix.”
It’s apparent to many that Tate is attempting to use his arrest to push his delusive ideas. From the look of the site, it’s clear he hopes to utilize the press from his legal situation to turn a profit by creating a community of neurotic individuals and making them believe material wealth is their only chance at fulfillment. Only time will tell if this cult following he hopes to create will drink the Kool-Aid.
Regan is a senior and this is her second year being part of the Gator's Eye. In her free time, she enjoys writing (of course), spending time with friends,...
