DISGRACED influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate built up a sleazy empire in Romania – and now accusations of human trafficking, rape and organised crime are set to bring their seedy world crashing down.
Even before their arrest on Thursday, the pair were notorious in Romania for a self-proclaimed webcam girl “scam”, and for an alleged revenge porn scandal surrounding one of the country’s most famous pop stars.
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On Thursday, Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan, and two others were arrested after their £600k villa in a leafy suburb of the Romanian capital Bucharest was raided.
Led away from the house in handcuffs by balaclava-wearing armed cops, Andrew, 36, bizarrely shouted: “The Matrix has attacked me.”
He later referred to the 1999 sci-fi classic again when he broke his social media silence on Friday, with a post appearing on his Twitter reading: “The Matrix sent their agents.”
But far from being a global conspiracy to take them down, it is alleged that the two British-American brothers were part of a sleazy conspiracy of their own.
Former kickboxer Andrew rose to fame in 2016 when he was kicked off Big Brother over a video appearing to show him attacking a woman.
He moved to Romania five years ago, where he bought a £600k villa in Pipera, a wealthy suburb on the outskirts of Bucharest.
Since he and his brother set up home in the Eastern European country, they have set up a self-proclaimed webcam scam tricking lonely men to hand over thousands of pounds.
Tristan Tate also dated a Romanian popstar and a famous TV presenter in the country.
The 34-year-old ex-athlete predated his brother’s reality show career by seven years when he appeared on Shipwrecked: The Island in 2011.
He appeared on the E4 series alongside Stephen Bear.
In 2018, he dated Romanian TV presenter and model, Bianca Dragusanu.
Reportedly, they only dated for a month, after she divorced her husband shortly before.
They were pictured together in one of Tristan’s fleet of expensive cars, including a Lamborghini Huracan, a Ferrari, and an Aston Martin Vanquish.
Bianca said she wanted something serious between her and Tristan, but the relationship reportedly quickly went south.
“He’s a businessman, I’m a businesswoman and a television personality, I also have a child that I take care of as much as possible, so we only went out for dinner a few times, the only times when, in fact, we saw each other,” she said.
I find it embarrassing that some people think this means being a man
Alexandra Stan
Tristan was far blunter in his reasons for the breakup.
Speaking to Romanian TV, he declared: “Bianca is a family woman, who left her husband and the father of her child for one of the strangest playboys in Bucharest.
“No one should be surprised that things didn’t work out between us.”
Last year, Tristan also briefly dated another Romanian celebrity, singer Alexandra Stan.
Alexandra, 33, broke through internationally when her 2010 single “Mr Saxobeat” became a global smash hit.
The two were pictured together on a date by the Romanian newspaper CanCan.
But after they broke up, intimate photographs of Alexandra with Tristan were leaked to the press, sparking claims of revenge porn.
Alexandra blamed Tristan for the leak, later telling CanCan: “It is very sad that intimate pictures are still being given to the press in 2021.
“I find it embarrassing that some people think this means being a man.”
She also said of Tristan: “He’s not the man I could do anything serious with and I’ve cut all ties.”
Tristan has denied that he leaked Alexandra’s naked photos and claimed that some 100 people had access to the images and could have shared them.
He also said that Alexandra was intending to post a video in which she twerked nude.
“She is a beautiful girl, we had some wonderful weeks together, she is wonderful and I will always miss her, but things did not go as we expected,” he said at the time.
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Less is known about Andrew Tate’s dating history.
He is rumpoured to be currently seeing American businesswoman and influencer Naghel Georgiana Manuela.
Andrew shared a picture of the pair on his since-suspended Instagram account in October 2021.
The couple were pictured flying in a private jet, with the caption “Flying in my Jet with the only woman I trust. Magic powers.”
Tate has claimed to have “double-digit” children, telling The Times in a September 2022 interview: “I am certain I will have more children than 99.9 per cent of the population of the western world.
“Double-digit children. And they all adore me.
“They see me as their hero and the women who have my children see me as a hero.”
While many details of the Tates’ lives pre-Romania remain obscure, it is believed that they inherited a hotel in Thailand from their father, late American chess International Master Emory Tate, who died in 2015.
In Romania, the pair were open about making millions running a “scam” which used webcam girls to sell sob-stories to desperate men and fleece them out of their money.
The brothers, who grew up for a time on a council estate in Luton, Beds, claimed to run a studio out of Romania employing 75 lingerie-clad models who talked to men.
For $4 a minute, fans would be able to speak to the women, who often spun tales about needing money for student debt or family emergencies.
Punters could ask for private shows and pay the girls tips “at their own risk”.
Tristan bragged that one man handed over his £20k inheritance, as the two brothers admitted to the Sunday Mirror that the business is a “total scam”.
Tristan said: “Whatever the excuse is, it is a lie.”
He claimed that they were beyond the law because their terms and conditions set out that the broadcasting is “for entertainment purposes only,” and that all cash given to models is “a voluntary sign of gratitude for their time broadcasting”.
This means, he insisted, that anything the models say doesn’t need to be true, and all cash handed over is a voluntary donation.
The business, along with Andrew Tate’s “Hustlers University” scheme, has allegedly made the brothers extremely wealthy, although far from their self-proclaimed “trillionaire” status.
However, now their latest run-in with the law threatens to bring about the end of their seedy empire.
On Thursday night, footage emerged of Andrew and his brother Tristan led away by Romanian cops after a swat team raided their expansive house.
The pair have reportedly been under investigation for the alleged kidnapping of two young women at their villa in the town of Voluntari, a suburb five miles northeast of the capital Bucharest.
“The four suspects appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost,” prosecutors said about the group.”
It came after Andrew Tate sparked a childish war of words with teenage environmental activist Greta, following a tweet from the former kickboxer bragging about his expensive car collection.
Greta however responded by taunting Tate, offering up her email address of “smalld**kenergy@getalife.com”.
This led to Tate responding with a bizarre rant, coming just hours before his arrest.
Tate has denied accusations of misogyny and claimed that many of his clips are “taken out of context”.
A spokesman for Andrew and Tristan told The Sun: “We cannot provide any details at the moment regarding alleged reports that they have been detained; however, Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can.”
