Andrew Tate – latest updates: Luxury cars seized from compound by Romanian authorities

Cars seized as part of ongoing investigation into human trafficking as Andrew Tate and brother Tristan remain in custody

Andrew Tate leaves Bucharest court in handcuffs amid human trafficking allegations

Romanian authorities have seized luxury cars from Andrew Tate’s compound as part of a criminal inquiry into alleged human trafficking.

Several cars, including a Rolls-Royce, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, were taken from the Tate compound on the outskirts of the capital, Bucharest, on Saturday to be transported to a storage location.

Earlier this week, prosecutors said they had seized 15 luxury vehicles and more than 10 properties and homes belonging to the suspects in Bucharest and the counties of Prahova and Brasov to prevent the assets being sold or hidden.

Anti-organised crime prosecutors detained Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects on 29 December on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit six women. They have denied wrongdoing.

The former kickboxer recently lost an appeal against a judge’s earlier decision to extend his arrest from 24 hours to 30 days.

He was seen this week for the first time since his arrest, walking into court in handcuffs with his brother.

Key Points

• Youtuber KSI calls Andrew Tate ‘cringey’
• Andrew Tate makes cryptic tweet about ‘hunting in the dark’ while in jail
• Romanian police announce fresh raids as seven homes searched
• Andrew Tate’s Twitter continues to reach millions of followers despite arrest
• Tate brothers lose appeal against arrest

[13 January 2023 17:15 · Maryam Zakir-Hussain]

School holds Andrew Tate assemblies over fears of ‘toxic misogynist’s influence on children’

Social media posts by Andrew Tate could serve as a “gateway drug” to children who go on to view more damaging content, teachers have warned.

At one school the head of performing arts Matt Adams decided to hold “Andrew Tate assemblies” due to fears over what pupils interested in the influencer are exposed to online.

Mr Adams teaches at a west London school, and toldThe Independent boys he had spoken to would either support Tate outright, make excuses for him or claim he had been misquoted.

Matt Mathers has more:

[13 January 2023 19:20 · Liam James]

This is why young men are still listening to Andrew Tate | Comment

Clint Edwards gives his take on Tate’s appeal: If you’re still unfamiliar with Andrew Tate, you’re one of the lucky ones. Wherever it is you’re sheltering, I hope it is warm, comfortable and you have enough tinned food for the foreseeable.

Tate sells himself as a hyper-masculine, ultra-wealthy, red-pilled lothario, who is willing to teach his young Padawans the ways of the world, women, and of the secrets of his own success. He offers young men the inside track on life. A ticket to the dream they didn’t quite know they had. In short, he is selling them a blueprint of how to be a man. And with a dearth of alternatives, they are more than willing to buy it.

There is something fundamentally underdeveloped about Tate. I don’t mean physically, but emotionally, intellectually, culturally. He radiates so much insecurity – masked with aggression and arrogance – that personally, I feel I need to squint when I watch him. Perhaps that’s why he always wears sunglasses.

But watch him people do. Mainly young men. Enthralled by the wisdom that their 36-year old guru from Luton is dishing out.

[13 January 2023 21:00 · Liam James]

Andrew Tate tweets again about cockroaches

Andew Tate has tweeted about a “dark roach-infested” dungeon, following a post from last night which said he was “surrounded by cockroaches”.

Tonight’s tweet read: “I will emerge from the dark roach-infested dungeon more ninja than ever before. They cannot break me.”

The account of the jailed influencer has continued to tweet since his arrest and is gaining followers.

[13 January 2023 22:00 · Liam James]

Youtuber KSI calls Andrew Tate ‘cringey’

Youtuber KSI has called Andrew Tate “cringey” as he has called for fans to stop worshipping influencers.

The internet personality, whose real name is Olajide Olatunj, said he does not want to be “put on a pedestal” like the arrested former kickboxer.

He told BBC Newsbeat: “I don’t want people to worship me. I don’t want this Top G title,” referring to a nickname for Mr Tate popular among the former kickboxers followers.

KSI went on to contrast his and Tate’s relationship with their fanbase. He said: “Try and be fair to everyone, try and just be good to everyone. Spread positivity all the time,” he says.

“And yeah, you know, we’re all human. We’re all gonna make mistakes. No one is perfect. And I always say that to my audience: don’t put me on a pedestal. Like I am not the GOAT. I don’t want people to worship me.”

Mr Tate has caused concern among teachers due to the influence on teenage boys of his hyper-masculine and misogynist messaging.

[13 January 2023 23:00 · Liam James]

Investigation sees searches in Bucharest, Ilfov and Prahova counties | catch-up

More than 10 properties and land owned by companies registered to the Tate brothers have so far been seized by Romanian investigators, along with land and a fleet of luxury cars.

Ramona Bolla, spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organised crime agency, DIICOT, said that searches were taking place in the counties of Bucharest, Ilfov, and Prahova “in order to obtain further evidence.”

Mr Tate launched an appeal against seizures of his property which was rejected by a judge.

[14 January 2023 01:00 · Liam James]

Bristol school teacher expresses concern over students accessing Andrew Tate content | catch-up

Matthew Simpson, a 28-year-old teacher working at a secondary school in Bristol, says students are being exposed to Andrew Tate’s content in “out of context” memes online, my colleague Matt Mathers reports.

“The most popular one currently is about the colour of Andrew Tate’s Bugatti [it is brown],” Mr Simpson told The Independent. “Students don’t understand the full picture of his views and prejudices and will happily quote him.

“But then when challenged they will be entirely ignorant of the fact that the man with the brown Bugatti espouses vile misogyny daily to his millions of followers. The concern is that these bite-size chunks of content could also act as a gateway drug, into his longer more damaging content.”

[14 January 2023 03:00 · Liam James]

Andrew Tate: A timeline of his rise and fall

Andrew Tate, the controversial former kickboxing world champion turned social media influencer, has lost his court appeal against his detention in Romania over rape and human trafficking charges (Joe Sommerlad writes).

Eugen Vidineac, a lawyer representing the 36-year-old and his brother Tristan, who has also been detained, has insisted that “there is not a single piece of evidence apart from the victim’s statement” to back up the allegations.

Mr Tate has amassed millions of followers across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok over the past decade. But he has also seen his accounts banned over inflammatory statements he has made, often appearing to advocate violence against women, which the platforms ruled violated their policies.

Frequently accused of embodying toxic masculinity and misogyny, having claimed that women cannot drive, belong in the home and are a man’s property, Mr Tate has made inconsistent statements on the subject. He told the Anything Goes with James English podcast in June 2021 that he was “absolutely sexist” and “absolutely a misogynist”, only to then claim on Piers Morgan Uncensored more recently that he was “absolutely not”.

[14 January 2023 04:00 · Liam James]

‘The Matrix got me’: How Andrew Tate, Logan Paul and other toxic men found a new way to avoid blame

Richard Hall looks into the latest excuse from Extremely Online Men and how it has seeped into more mainstream content:

[14 January 2023 05:00 · Liam James]

How Andrew Tate became the poster boy of the hard-right | Comment

Katherine Denkinson’s take on the influencer’s rise to infamy: Andrew Tate should have been anathema to the folks who spend half their time telling us they’re not far right. But, instead, he became a well-dressed, wealthy caricature of a successful “alpha male”, conducting high-profile TV interviews with people like Piers Morgan.

Julia Hartley-Brewer, who tweeted that she would choose Tate’s lifestyle over that of “doom-mongering eco-cultist” Greta Thunberg, later claimed she didn’t really know who Tate was, branding him “an irrelevance”. She has since decided that Tate is, in fact, a “nasty misogynist”.

Interestingly, earlier this week, Hartley-Brewer also appeared on TalkTV discussing the actions of rioters in Brazil and at the Capitol insurrection, claiming that “what happened with… Trump and Bolsonaro started on the left”.

The concept of the left being responsible for the Capitol insurrection has been around since 2021, when Republicans were pushing it to deflect from their own actions on 6 January. It has been disproven many times, yet remains strong within the QAnon conspiracy circuit who see the left and Antifa as working for the powers that be – while they represent the disenfranchised “alt-right”, a group which could feasibly claim Tate as one of their own. The Capitol claim is one of the more egregious examples of conspiracy theories making their way into mainstream news, but not the only one.

[14 January 2023 06:00 · Liam James]

School holds Andrew Tate assemblies over fears of ‘toxic misogynist’s influence on children’

Social media posts by Andrew Tate could serve as a “gateway drug” to children who go on to view more damaging content, teachers have warned.

At one school the head of performing arts Matt Adams decided to hold “Andrew Tate assemblies” due to fears over what pupils interested in the influencer are exposed to online.

Mr Adams teaches at a west London school, and toldThe Independent boys he had spoken to would either support Tate outright, make excuses for him or claim he had been misquoted.

Matt Mathers has more: