Disgraced social media influencer Andrew Tate has been charged with rape, human trafficking, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, according to Romanian police.
Tate and his brother, Tristan, have been under house arrest in Romania since March after police first investigated them for sex crimes in December, seizing millions in assets from their Romanian home. Authorities from the country's organized crime agency, DIICOT, said Tuesday that two British-American dual nationals will soon face trial over the charges.
While they were not named specifically, both brothers have dual citizenship in the United States and United Kingdom. A spokesperson for the two has since confirmed that they were the two featured in the indictment. A trial date has not yet been set.
According to police, Tate and his associates falsely brought seven women to Romania by misleading them into thinking they were in a real, romantic relationship, which the DIICOT calls a grooming tactic known as “the loverboy method.” The victims were then held in a house near Bucharest, and subjected to physical and sexual violence.
Tate has amassed a large social media following, particularly of adolescent boys, by promoting his insupportable beliefs that women are inferior to men, and that they should be subservient to them. In 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Tate infamously tweeted that women “bare some responsibility” for being sexually assaulted.
The disgraced influencer has also been accused of running pyramid schemes under the guise of dating and business "advice" to young men. For monthly fees of $49, men could attend Tate's “Hustler’s University," which offered a “pimpin’ hoe degree."
The program has since been shutdown, alongside several of Tate's social media accounts. Only his Twitter account remains, posting updates about his ongoing legal troubles.
Many educators have expressed concern about the effect Tate is having on adolescent boys, and how he is influencing their treatment of the girls around them. One teacher from London previously told The Guardian that “extremely vulnerable” boys as young as 10 years old are “praising Tate and parroting his vile ideas."
“[Schools] can’t compete with the tidal wave of misogyny online," she said. “It’s the most vulnerable and socially awkward boys that are drawn in and given a sense of belonging to something that is very dangerous.”