Andrew Tate, brother Tristan in U.S. after leaving Romania amid rape, trafficking charges
Romania says charges still stand for Tates, who are dual U.S.-U.K. citizens
Internet personality and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from Romania on Thursday morning, shortly after prosecutors lifted a travel ban related to criminal charges against them.
The Tate brothers are under criminal investigation in Romania on accusations of forming an organized criminal group, human trafficking, trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering. They have denied all wrongdoing.
Romania's anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said in a statement Thursday that prosecutors approved a "request to modify the obligation preventing the defendants from leaving Romania," but that judicial control measures — which require them to appear before judicial authorities when summoned — remained in place. The agency did not say who had made the request.
"We have no criminal record anywhere on the planet, ever," Andrew Tate told reporters as he left the Florida airport on Thursday, claiming he and his brother were "largely misunderstood" and the victims of lies.
He did not respond to reporters who asked why the brothers had come to Florida, or whether U.S. President Donald Trump had helped get their travel ban lifted. The 38-year-old influencer, and his 36-year-old brother are both vocal supporters of Trump.
Asked on Thursday if his administration pressured the Romania government to release the Tates, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he did not know anything about the circumstances: "I just know nothing about it. We'll check it out. We'll let you know."
The Financial Times reported last week, citing sources, that members of Trump's administration had pressured Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on the Tates, former kickboxers with dual U.S. and British citizenship.
Romania's Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu denied he had faced pressure, but said the Tates were mentioned during his brief hallway meeting with Trump's special envoy Richard Grenell at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month.
It is not clear whether the government of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is set to visit Trump at the White House on Thursday, had any prior knowledge of the change in their status. Britain previously put in an extradition request for Andrew Tate, once his Romanian legal matters were adjudicated, over allegations of sexual aggression between 2012 and 2015.
Tate, who gained millions of online fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics say denigrates women, planned to return to Romania at the end of March to fulfil a judicial control obligation, a source told Reuters.
DIICOT said in their statement that the Tates were "warned that deliberately violating these obligations may result in judicial control being replaced with a stricter deprivation of liberty measure."
Alleged victims 'in disbelief'
Four British women who accused Andrew Tate of sexual violence and physical abuse and are suing him in the U.K. said in a joint statement on Thursday that they are "in disbelief and feel re-traumatized" by news that the travel restrictions were lifted.
Matthew Jury, a lawyer with McCue Jury & Partners, which is representing the women, called the decision to lift the travel ban "disgusting and dismaying."
"That the U.S. government would choose to lobby for his release is absurd but sadly, given its actions over the past month, perhaps unsurprising," Jury said in a post on X, adding that the possibility they would ever answer to the Romanian charges was now "fanciful."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that his state was not involved or notified of the arrival of the Tates by federal officials, saying he found out they were en route through media coverage.
"The reality is, no, Florida is not a place where you're welcome with that type of conduct," said DeSantis.
State Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a social media post following the brothers' arrival that his office would conduct a "preliminary inquiry" into them.
"Florida has zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women. If any of these alleged crimes trigger Florida jurisdiction, we will hold them accountable," said Uthmeier.
First arrested in 2022
As a so-called "manosphere" influencer, Andrew Tate gained millions of fans for online videos that direct men to, among other things, physically assault women who accuse them of cheating, according to extremism-tracking group the Anti-Defamation League. "It's bang out the machete, boom in her face, you grip her up by the neck," Tate says in one video.
Tate, 38, and his brother Tristan, 36, were arrested near Romania's capital in late 2022 along with two Romanian women, accused of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. All four accused denied the allegations. Several women alleged they were detained under false pretences, put under surveillance and forced to appear in pornographic videos.
In December, a court in Bucharest ruled that the case against the Tates and the two Romanian women couldn't go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors.
The case hasn't been closed, and there is also a separate legal case against the brothers in Romania that includes charges of money laundering.
Late last year, a U.K. court ruled that in a separate case against the Tate brothers, police could seize more than 2.6 million pounds ($4.7 million Cdn) to cover years of unpaid taxes from the pair and froze some of their accounts. Andrew Tate called it "outright theft" and called it "a co-ordinated attack on anyone who dares to challenge the system."
Andrew Tate has said he moved to Romania after being investigated in the U.K. on charges of sexual assault, which were ultimately dropped.
A Romanian court lifted a precautionary seizure on multiple Tate assets, his representative said on Thursday, including vehicles, bank accounts and company shares, although some assets still remain under seizure.
The Romanian network to prevent violence against women, which groups together 24 non-governmental organizations, sent prosecutors an open letter on Thursday asking them to publicly communicate why the travel ban had been lifted, "so that any kind of doubt regarding the independence and impartiality of the Romanian judicial system be dispelled."
With files from CBC News and The Associated Press