UPDATE VIDEO | Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, taken from custody to DIICOT on Wednesday / Andrew Tate: ‘I did nothing wrong’ / Tristan Tate: „They’re trying to steal my cars, my money, that’s why I’m in jail!” / Lawyer Eugen Vidineac: „They have important things to say”
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Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate are taken, on Wednesday morning, from the custody of the Capital Police to the headquarters of DIICOT, for new procedural documents in the case of human trafficking, establishing of an organized criminal group and rape. Along with the two British millionaires, one of the two women arrested with them is to be brought to DIICOT, judicial sources told Gândul.
UPDATE 9.00 A.M. What the Tate brothers said
On arrival at the DIICOT, Tristan Tate accused, „They have no evidence, they are trying to steal my cars, my money and that’s why I’m in jail!”
For his part, Andrew Tate said, „It’s an empty file. There is no evidence. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Along with the Tate brothers, former policewoman Luana Alexandra Radu was also brought to DIICOT for computer searches.
Tate brothers’ lawyer: ‘I don’t know if they should have been careful’
Eugen Vidineac, the Tate brothers’ lawyer, said upon arrival at the DIICOT:
We will now see the relevance of this evidence. Probably phone calls between the boys or something. If they claim their innocence, I don’t know if they should have been careful when speaking not to compromise themselves. I know absolutely nothing (editor’s note: about the press messages).
They say they have important things to say, they even want to make statements. Let them talk about the charges brought against them.
INITIAL NEWS
Andrew and Tristan Tate, together with Georgiana Naghel and former policewoman Luana Alexandra Radu, have been in custody since the 29th of December 2022 and could remain in prison until the 27th of February, after the Bucharest Court recently extended their pre-trial detention for another 30 days. In the coming days, the Bucharest Court of Appeal will decide whether they will remain in custody or be released.
A week ago, the former policewoman accused of helping the Tate brothers sexually exploit at least six young women was taken out of custody to be present during a computer search of her mobile phone. Judicial sources told Gândul at the time that the Tate brothers and Georgiana Naghel would also be brought to DIICOT for computer searches. Prosecutors are looking to identify conversations relevant to the investigation that they may have had on WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram.
During the latest searches, the investigators also took the mobile phone of Ana B., the woman from Popești-Leordeni considered the „key” witness in the Tate brothers’ case. Ana B. managed the Tate brothers’ multimillion-dollar accounts, from which she paid the salaries of the videochat girls and other employees, but also made other payments. The prosecutors are to search the phone in her presence, judicial sources told Gândul.
Last week, the „bomber” Vlad Obu was at the DIICOT declaring he was heard as a witness in the case of brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate.
Judicial sources told Gândul at the time that the DIICOT prosecutors also searched Vlad Obu’s phone, looking for new evidence on how the Tate brothers recruited the girls to do videochat, as well as other possible „dangerous connections”. Vlad Obu is considered an „imitation” of the Tate brothers, whom he tried to copy and to whom he was close.
How prosecutors convinced the court that the Tate brothers should spend another 30 days in custody
Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, together with Georgiana Naghel and Luana Alexandra Radu, received their first preventive arrest warrants on the 30th of December 2022, after they had been detained by the DIICOT prosecutors the day before, following the searches of their villa in Pipera and their videochat studio..
On the 20th of January, at the request of the prosecutors, the Bucharest Court extended their preventive arrest warrants for another 30 days, from the 29th of January to the 27th of February. Although the decision is not final and has already been challenged by the Tate brothers’ lawyers, they remain in custody at least until the 28th of January, the last day of the first arrest warrant. In the coming days, the Bucharest Court of Appeal is due to decide whether Andrew and Tristan Tate and their two accomplices will remain in pre-trial detention or will be released or placed under house arrest from the 29th of January.
DIICOT prosecutors succeeded in convincing the judge at the Bucharest Court to extend the Tate brothers’ arrest warrants, arguing that, left free, they „could exercise psychological control over the victims”.
„The particularly high level of dangerousness of the offences for which the defendants are being investigated stems from:
- their trained ability to identify potential victims of human trafficking;
- their ability to take advantage of the victims’ vulnerability, given their young age, lack of affectionate and caring support from family members and society, the existence of previous acts of violence causing unidentified and untreated trauma, including sexual abuse;
- the ability and effort of the defendants to exercise permanent psychological control over the victims, including by resorting to acts of violence constantly manifested, precisely in order to break the resistance of the victims and turn them into slaves”, wrote the prosecutors in the Referral with the proposal to extend the preventive arrest measure, from which Gândul presented excerpts.
„The Tate brothers could flee Romania if released from detention”
Prosecutors also say that brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate could flee Romania if released from custody.
In this context, the DIICOT prosecutors use an earlier statement by one of the two eccentric millionaires, in which he showed that he had accounts in 19 countries around the world and could fly using multiple passports.
„If I’m wrong and England wants me in jail, I can fly with a Nigerian or American or English or Polish or Estonian passport. I have bank accounts in 19 countries”, as the prosecutors quoted the statement of one of the Tate brothers in their report.
The arguments and evidence presented by the DIICOT prosecutors convinced the Bucharest Court to extend their preventive arrest warrants for another 30 days, and the judge considered that their release „would create real risks for the proper conduct of the criminal trial”.
Andrew and Tristan Tate are accused of „establishing an organized criminal group in 2021 with a view to committing the crime of trafficking in human beings on the territory of Romania and other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom”.
„The victims were then transported and housed in buildings in Ilfov county where they were physically abused and psychologically coerced (through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and the allegation of debts), they were sexually exploited by members of the group by being forced to engage in pornographic acts with a view to producing and disseminating material of such a nature via social media platforms and by being forced to perform forced labor in order to obtain significant financial benefits consisting in sums of money obtained as a result of users accessing the material”, according to the DIICOT.