Andrew Tate, charged with rape and trafficking in Romania, lands in the US

28 February 2025 - 08:37 By Luiza Ilie and Jeff Mason
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Andrew Tate speaks to the media on arrival in the US from Romania on February 27 2025 after prosecutors lifted a travel ban related to criminal charges against him and his brother Tristan.
Andrew Tate speaks to the media on arrival in the US from Romania on February 27 2025 after prosecutors lifted a travel ban related to criminal charges against him and his brother Tristan.
Image: REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona

Internet figure and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from Romania on Thursday, 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 organised criminal group, human trafficking, trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering. They have denied all wrongdoing.

“We have no criminal record anywhere on the planet, ever,” Andrew Tate told reporters as he left the Florida airport on Thursday, saying he and his brother were innocent and the victims of lies.

He did not respond to reporters who asked why the brothers had come to Florida, or whether US President Donald Trump had helped get their travel ban lifted.

On Thursday Trump said he knows nothing about the Tate case in Romania while speaking to reporters alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ahead of the two leaders' meeting.

Starmer said the Tates face UK legal challenges as well and called for justice to be served, telling reporters: “There's an English element here, so obviously it's important that justice is done, and human trafficking is obviously, to my mind, a security risk.”

Tate, who gained millions of online fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics said denigrates women, planned to return to Romania at the end of March to fulfil a judicial control obligation, a source told Reuters.

Referring to the charges against Tate, Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis told reporters his state was “not a place where you're welcome with that type of conduct”, and the Florida attorney-general was looking at what jurisdiction the state had to “deal with this.”

Andrew Tate's online instructional videos direct men to, among other things, physically assault women who accuse them of cheating, according to extremism-tracking group the Anti-Defamation League.

In one video he says: “It's bang out the machete, boom in her face, you grip her up by the neck.” 

Reuters


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