OAN Staff Abril Elfi
11:17 AM – Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Armed police have raided Andrew Tate’s home in Romania following claims of trafficking and underage sex.
On Wednesday, officers conducted four searches at Tate’s home in Romania as a part of an investigation into the alleged crimes that included human trafficking and sex with a minor.
The anti-organized crime agency in Romania, DIICOT, announced that it was conducting house searches in four separate locations in Bucharest and the neighboring county of Ilfov.
The agency said they are looking into claims of money laundering, influence peddling, sexual encounters with minors, and human trafficking. Hearings would take place at the agency’s headquarters later on, the agency added.
In response to the raids, Mateea Petrescu, a spokesman for Tate, stated that “although the charges in the search warrant are not yet fully clarified, they include suspicions of human trafficking and money laundering” and that his legal team was present. Petrescu refrained from addressing the claims pertaining to minors.
Hundreds of police officers and forensic experts were searching Tate’s expansive estate on the outskirts of Bucharest, the capital.
“During the entire criminal process, the investigated persons benefit from the procedural rights and guarantees provided by the Code of Criminal Procedure, as well as the presumption of innocence,” DIICOT stated in its press release.
Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested in 2022, along with two Romanian women. As a result, prosecutors indicted them last year but those involved have denied the allegations.
The Bucharest Tribunal decided in April that the case file presented by the prosecutors against the four individuals satisfied all legal requirements, allowing for the commencement of a trial without specifying a date. This decision was made following months of discussion in the preliminary chamber stages of the case, during which the defendants can object to the evidence and case file presented by the prosecution.
The Tate brothers were placed under house arrest after three months of police custody following their arrest in 2022. Afterwards, they were limited to the counties of Bucharest and Ilfov, and eventually, to the entirety of Romania. A court’s final ruling last month reversed an earlier ruling that had permitted the Tate brothers to leave Romania as they await trial.
The earlier court ruled on July 5th that they could leave the country as long as they remained within the 27-member European Union.
Andrew has claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. His claims come as he had been previously banned from various social media platforms for “misogynistic views” and “hate speech.”
The Tate brothers also appeared in March at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a different case, following the issuance of arrest warrants by British authorities for alleged sexual aggression in a case that originated in the United Kingdom and spanned from 2012 to 2015.
The British request to extradite the Tate’s to the United Kingdom was approved by the appeals court, but only after the Romanian legal proceedings were finished.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts