Andrew Tate, the self-proclaimed “king of toxic masculinity,” and his brother Tristan traveled from the United States (U.S.) to Romania to fulfill legal obligations related to the criminal investigation against them.
The brothers are under investigation in Romania for multiple charges, including forming an organized criminal group and human trafficking. They have denied any wrongdoing.
The brothers’ plane, which Andrew Tate previously stated in a post on platform X had cost 185.000 dollars for a “flight across the Atlantic just to sign a single piece of paper,” landed at Henri Coanda International Airport in Bucharest on Saturday.
Upon arriving at their residence near Bucharest, they pledged to prove their innocence in court, with Tate stating: “Innocent people do not run away from anything.”
“After everything we’ve been through, we truly deserve a day in court where it will be confirmed that we did nothing wrong and that we never should have been in court in the first place. We never should have ended up in jail. Our assets never should have been seized. Our name never should have been tarnished. Anyone who believed this garbage has an especially low IQ,” he told reporters.
As part of the preventive judicial oversight measures, while the investigation is ongoing, the Tates are required to report regularly to the authorities in Romania. Their next check-in is scheduled for tomorrow.
Their return to Romania comes nearly a month after they traveled to Florida, following the lifting of their travel ban by Romanian prosecutors.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said earlier this month that his office had opened a criminal investigation against the brothers, a move welcomed by the United States (U.S.) National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which represents one of Tate’s alleged victims.
Tate then wrote on platform X that they had returned to Miami to see their family and were offended by the opening of the investigation.
“We have no criminal record and expected a heroic welcome after being unfairly mistreated abroad,” he wrote.
The initial criminal proceedings against the Tate brothers collapsed in December when a court in Bucharest decided not to proceed with the trial and returned the case files to prosecutors, citing deficiencies in the indictment.
United Kingdom (UK) authorities have also issued an arrest warrant for the Tates, and they will be extradited once the legal proceedings in Romania are completed. The charges in the UK, which they have denied, pertain to sexual violence between 2012 and 2015, Klix.ba writes.
