Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan today took their first step towards reclaiming £10million worth of assets including several luxury cars and properties.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal today overturned a decision to seize their assets in what Tate’s spokesperson described as a ‘significant’ ruling for the brothers.
Tate, 37, his brother Tristan, 35, and two Romanian women – Luana Radu and Georgiana Naghel – were indicted in June for human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women – allegations they deny.
Since then, Romanian authorities have seized the brothers’ fleet of sports cars including Porsches and Ferraris, 14 luxury watches and several houses in Bucharest.
But the city’s court of Appeal today overturned that decision to seize the £10million worth of assets. The brothers will now have to return to court at a later date for a decision on how much of the assets they will get back.
Describing the ruling as ‘decisive’, Tate’s spokesperson told : ‘This outcome marks a significant victory for Tate and a testament to the legal process.’
Andrew Tate (L) and Tristan Tate (R) walk from the Bucharest’s Court of Appeal on December 22
Pictured: Andrew Tate poses next to a Bugatti Chiron in a now-famous photograph after he used it to taunt environmental activist Greta Thunberg shortly before his arrest
Vehicles including a Rolls-Royce, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were seen being taken away in January 2022
Eugen Vidineac, lead counsel for Tate, said: ‘We salute the decision today and applaud the judge for what we consider to be a legally correct and justified ruling.’
Tate’s sports cars – a monstrous fleet of three Porsches, two BMWs, two Ferraris, one Aston Martin, one McLaren, one Lamborghini and five Mercedes – were seized as part of the investigation into human trafficking and sexual exploitation in 2022.
Tate is also known to have posed with a pair of extremely high-end motors including a Rolls-Royce Wraith and a Bugatti Chiron, both of which were also confiscated.
Other luxurious items seized by investigators include 14 luxury watches – two Hublot, three Patek Philippe, one Cartier, three Audemars Piguet, one Akribos, two Rolex, one Ulysse Nardin, and one Breitling – as well as several plots of land and houses in and around Bucharest.
One of the houses has eight bedrooms and spans 424 square metres, while the other has four bedrooms and spans 153 square metres, the source claimed.
In August, Romanian prosecutors released files detailing the allegations made against the Tate brothers.
There are seven female victims in the case, Romanian prosecutors say, who were lured with false pretences of love and transported to Romania, where the gang sexually exploited them and subjected them to physical violence.
In hundreds of pages of reported testimony and evidence, several women detail how they were allegedly verbally and physically abused by Tate and Tristan while being coerced to create online pornographic content.
One woman told prosecutors Tate, 36, would rape her while holding her head so she couldn’t move and threatened to get her pregnant and lock her in a house because she had sent him negative messages, according to files seen by the BBC.
The alleged rape victim told prosecutors that she ‘was crying and scared because she thought [Andrew Tate] was capable of anything.’ She claims that during one attack, Tate ordered her to take off her clothes while keeping her shoes on and then ‘slapped her across the face’.
Another woman who worked for Tate claimed the misogynistic influencer tried to coerce them into having group sex with women and when she refused, he told her: ‘Shut up you whore, you will do as I say’.
Tate’s workers would also be fined 10 per cent of their earnings from OnlyFans, PornHub and other sites for miniscule infractions – such as crying or wiping their noses while performing live on the webcams or taking a long break. It meant one alleged victim owed the Tate brothers £3,412 in debts.
The prosecution’s files not only include a series of allegations of rape, human trafficking and exploitation of women but also detail how subscriptions to Tate and Tristan’s online groups appear to make them $5million (£3.9million) a month.
Georgiana Naghel reportedly told the women she would ‘break your teeth’ or that they would ‘end up in the morgue’, according to transcribed text messages. Naghel is accused of attacking a woman, a claim she denies.
Those women creating pornographic content for the Tate brother’s webcam business allege their income was controlled by the two men.
Former police officer Luana Radu (left) and Georgiana Naghel (right) are suspected of assisting the Tate brothers
Tate is seen in front of several luxury cars at his compound in Romania
The alleged victims claim they were fined 10 per cent by the Tate brothers for the smallest of details, such as crying while live, wiping their nose while on camera or taking too long on breaks.
One victim claimed Tate, who had allegedly talked to her of love and marriage, had tried to coerce her into group sex. She reportedly told Tate in a transcribed message: ‘I will not have sex with girls. I’m not going to do this.’
She then added: ‘Baby, I gotta drink for this. I can’t do it without drinking.’
Tate allegedly responded: ‘Don’t be boring… I want to see that you submit to me… Shut up you whore, you will do as I say.’
In a text message, Tate also allegedly says he is the ‘leader’ of the adult content business.
Tristan Tate also appeared to say in audio messages from 2020 that he didn’t want the women to have access to their accounts on PornHub and OnlyFans.
‘I don’t want them to have the passwords, I don’t want them to have anything,’ Tristan allegedly said. ‘I don’t want you to tell them they have OnlyFans, I want that money to be used by me and you, screw them.’
In another part of the transcript of the audio message, Tristan reportedly said: ‘Mainly I’m going to slave these bitches… I’m going to make them work even more hours and hours and hours… I work these bitches like slaves… SLAVE work. Minimum 10 or 12 hours a day.’
The files also refer to how subscriptions to the Tate brothers’ War Room and Hustler’s University, which apparently helps men ‘become the best versions of themselves’, means the brothers earn an eyewatering $5million a month in fees.
Tate, who has been accused of peddling conspiracy theories online and has amassed 7.2 million Twitter followers, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political plot designed to silence him.
The prosecution allege that the Tate brothers do not have income ‘from lawful activities’. Instead, from 2018 onwards, they acquired ‘numerous properties’, ’15 of the rarest and most expensive cars’ worth around £3million as well as jewellery and $400,000 in cryptocurrency.
The Tate brothers have denied the allegations made against them.