Overview

Andrew Tate Human Trafficking Arrest refers to the highly publicized event in which Andrew Tate was detained by Romanian police on the charges of human trafficking in late December 2022. Shortly after his detainment, the news rapidly spread online and was widely discussed and memed by various users around the web. This incident also notably followed the viral online beef between Tate and Greta Thunberg on Twitter in the days prior. In March 2023, both Tate brothers were released from jail and placed under house arrest.

Background

On December 29th, 2022, Romanian news outlet Libertatea^[5] reported that Romanian authorities were seen going into and then walking out Andrew Tate and his brother Tristian after carrying out an armed raid of the influencer's home (seen below). The raid was conducted by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) in Bucharest and is believed to be in connection to a case involving the abduction of two girls in April when a woman called the police saying she was being held at Tate's home against her will.^[6] At that time, Tate was brought into DIICOT for questioning but was later released, brushing the incident off as a swatting attempt.^[9]

Developments

Pizza Box Hoax / Pizzatate

With the arrest coming shortly after Andrew Tate uploaded a response to Greta Thunberg's quip against him earlier in the week, a rumor began spreading online shortly after that a picture Tate posted (which included a pizza box from a well-known Romanian chain called Jerry's Pizza) during their exchange tipped authorities off that he was in Romania, thus leading to his arrest. For example, on December 29th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @Esqueer_'s viral tweet suggested this, though it was later proven to be false^[7] despite numerous media outlets and users spreading the misinformation (shown below).

According to Reuters,^[8] the rumor was disproven by Romanian authorities who said, "The anti organised-crime unit representative said that it was not the case that Tate's arrest had been made as a result of the pizza boxes." Gawker^[7] also published an article on the hoax, which was dubbed "Pizzatate," on December 30th following the Reuters piece.

Release From Jail

On March 31st, 2023, Andre Tate, Tristan Tate and two other women related to the case were released from jail and placed under house arrest according to publications like the New York Times.^[10] The outlet additionally stated that "prosecution is expected to ask for an extension of their investigation for another 30 days" and also that the brothers had not been officially indicted.

Also on March 31st, Andrew Tate posted a video to his Twitter^[11] account that showed him walking back and forth in his home while smoking a cigar with a caption that claimed he'd been in "24 hour lockdown" with time to think about "Real thoughts. Real plans." Over the course of three days, the video received roughly 17.6 million views and 509,000 likes (shown below).

Since last year ive been in 24 hour lockdown. No yard time.Pacing a 3metre cell with zero electronics or outside contact. Absolute clarity of mind. Real thoughts. Real plans.Vivid pain.One hour home and I cant stand my phone.Some habits die hard.We must defeat Shaytan. pic.twitter.com/Q6TBK5KTqU

— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) April 1, 2023

Online Reactions

The reaction online to Andrew Tate's arrest on December 29th, 2022, was swift and extensive, with a significant amount of people celebrating the arrest with cheering, memes and generalized excitement. Due to the original beef between Tate and Greta referencing the number of cars he possessed, Twitter user @grovymango^[2] uploaded a video on December 29th of several cars falling out of a building and being set on fire as part of a movie production while joking that it was Tate's cars killing themselves after his arrest, earning over 65,000 likes and getting over 1.8 million views in four hours (shown below).

Andrew Tate’s cars killing themselves after Greta got him arrested pic.twitter.com/pMJZ0lrFRg

— grovy 🥭 (@grovymango) December 29, 2022

In the following days, some of Andrew Tate's fans and supporters were quick to note that Tate had previously mentioned over the past few months in multiple instances that he felt targeted and would soon be arrested or otherwise taken out of the picture. This can be seen in the Twitter post by @Giga_Snails^[3] on December 30th, which received over 100 likes in two hours (shown below).

Is this an orchestrated attack on Andrew Tate 🤔 #AndrewTatearrested #matrix #andrewtate pic.twitter.com/5rDI3MExgA

— Giga Snails (@Giga_Snails) December 30, 2022

Additional Reactions

the internet when they found out andrew tate got arrested pic.twitter.com/3szWhtENpR

— sean yoo (@SeanYoo) December 29, 2022

Finding out Andrew Tate got arrested! pic.twitter.com/aMM8ueHSaj

— King Bach (@KingBach) December 29, 2022

Rape and Human Trafficking Charges

On June 20th, 2023, Andrew and Tristan Tate, along with two of their associates, were charged with rape and human trafficking. The group faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.

Search Interest

External References