BUCHAREST, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Romanian prosecutors officially indicted social media influencer Andrew Tate on Friday for trafficking minors, money laundering, sex with a minor and witness tampering and his brother Tristan for complicity, years after they began investigating them.
The Tate brothers, former kickboxers with dual U.S. and British citizenship, were arrested in Miami in late July after Britain requested their extradition.
Mainly based in Romania since 2017, they have been under criminal investigation in the country on charges including human trafficking since December 2022.
Romanian prosecutors said the Tates recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage, before forcing them to produce pornographic content for a webcam business.
They have denied all wrongdoing. "We will examine every aspect of (the indictment) with the same level of scrutiny and we will challenge any evidential, procedural or legal deficiencies through the appropriate judicial process," a Romanian lawyer for the Tates, Eugen Vidineac, said in a statement.
"Our clients continue to reject the allegations against them."
PROSECUTORS DESCRIBE CASE INVOLVING 15-YEAR-OLD
The Tate brothers remain in jail in the U.S. while a judge decides on the request for their extradition to Britain, where they are wanted on rape charges.
The spokesperson for the Romanian anti-organized crime prosecuting unit DIICOT — which is investigating the Tates — said it was not immediately clear whether the unit will seek their extradition from the United States.
The Tates can be tried in absentia in Romania, but the trial will not start immediately. Under Romanian law, the indictment gets sent to a preliminary court chamber, where a judge will inspect the case files to ensure legality.
While the law states that the preliminary chamber judge has 60 days to finalize the report, indictments routinely take significantly longer.
DIICOT said one of Andrew Tate's victims was 15 when he seduced her in Britain in 2012, before moving her to the Romanian capital Bucharest and using physical violence and mental intimidation to sexually exploit her by forcing her to produce pornographic content for social media sites.
His brother Tristan was an accessory, the unit said, using physical aggression to coerce the victim.
Prosecutors said the brothers kept $1.25 million from the videochat income generated by the victim, roughly 80% of all her gains. The brothers tried to launder the funds by buying four luxury cars, they added.
The brothers were previously indicted in Romania on charges of human trafficking, but in late 2024 the Bucharest court of appeals sent the case back to prosecutors after deeming some evidence inadmissible.
Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, previously said he moved to Romania because law enforcement there was more lax.
Both brothers have grown their following of mainly young men by building a lavish, hyper-macho image of driving fast cars and dating beautiful women.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
