VIDEO: The Tate brothers, taken out of custody again and taken to DIICOT / Tristan Tate: „ What evidence is there against us? That should be the news of the day”
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Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were brought, on Thursday morning, around 08:30, from the custody of the Capital Police to the DIICOT headquarters for new procedural documents in the case of human trafficking, creation of an organized criminal group and rape. The same thing happened the day before, when they were brought to the anti-mafia prosecutor’s office to have their electronic devices searched.
UPDATE 08:30: Andrew and Tristan Tate were brought to DIICOT headquarters
“What evidence is there against us? That should be the news of the day,” said Tristan Tate as he got out of the police van and was escorted by agents to DIICOT headquarters.
And Andrew Tate pleaded his innocence to journalists in front of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT).
INITIAL NEWS
Andrew and Tristan Tate were released from custody on Wednesday as well, to attend the computer search by DIICOT prosecutors.
On this occasion, their lawyer stated that only the existing content on the devices was stored and it is to be interpreted at a later date.
„ All the existing data on the respective media were downloaded, without performing an interpretation of the respective data or printing the images or their phone listing. Absolutely nothing, nothing. All the respective disks, the detailing of the data extracted from the respective devices is to be carried out in the next period. Andrew Tate has made what we consider to be convincing and complete statements on all the charges in the case and we believe that, through these statements, things have been greatly simplified in terms of subsequent developments in the prosecution,” said Constantin Ioan Gliga, one of the Tate brothers’ lawyers.
Prosecutors are looking to identify conversations relevant to the investigation that they may have had on WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram.
On Wednesday, brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate left the DIICOT headquarters at around 5pm, after about eight hours in the prosecution unit.
Britons Andrew and Tristan Tate, arrested in Romania, for human trafficking
Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, together with Georgiana Naghel and Luana Alexandra Radu, were issued their first preventive arrest warrants on the 30th of December 2022, after being 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. Even though 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. În zilele următoare, The Bucharest Court of Appeal will decide whether Andrew and Tristan Tate, as well as their two accomplices, will remain in pretrial detention or whether they 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”.
Prosecutors also say that brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate could flee Romania if released from custody. In this context, the DIICOT prosecutors used an earlier statement by one of the two eccentric millionaires, in which he indicated he had accounts in 19 countries around the world and could fly using several 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,” 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 „setting up an organised 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.
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