Right-wing influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were allowed to leave Romania where they had been arrested in 2022, and flew on a private jet headed for Florida on Thursday morning, according to CNN.
The Tate brothers were permitted to leave Romania after prosecutors lifted a travel ban stemming from charges — which they denied — of human trafficking, sexual intercourse with a minor, money laundering and starting an organized crime group to sexually exploit women.
A recent report in The Financial Times suggested that the Donald Trump administration played a role in getting Romanian authorities to lift travel restriction on the Tates, who are adamant MAGA supporters.
But the brothers are still facing the same charges. Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said in a statement Thursday that the brothers are indeed still required to “appear before judicial authorities whenever summoned” in Romania since “judicial control measures remained in place.”
Popular on Variety
“The defendants have been warned that deliberately violating these obligations may result in judicial control being replaced with a stricter deprivation of liberty measure,” the statement reads.
Meanwhile, four women who allege that Andrew Tate sexually abused them have reacted to his departure. “It is clear that he will now not face criminal prosecution for his alleged crimes in Romania; he will use it as an opportunity to harass further and intimidate witnesses and his accusers, and he will continue to spread his violent, misogynistic doctrine around the world,” the women said in a statement to the BBC.
The Tates, who hold dual U.K.-U.S. nationality, along with two Romanian women who were arrested with them in late 2022, were indicted in 2023. In April last year, a Bucharest court said a trial could start and ultimately decided not to start it, claiming the indictment was flawed. But the case has not been closed. Ioan Gliga, their brothers lawyer, told CNN that the brothers will return to Romania on March 24 for their next court appearance.
Andrew Tate first rose to public consciousness as a guest on the U.K.’s “Big Brother” reality show in 2016, where he was criticized for homophobic and racist comments made on Twitter. He was eventually removed from the show after a video surfaced in which he appeared to be hitting a woman with a belt. Tate and the woman claimed their actions were consensual.
He has since built a following online peddling advice on masculinity and money. He was banned from Twitter (now X) in May 2017 before being reinstated by Elon Musk after Musk purchased the social media platform.