Andrew Tate, charged with rape in Romania, heads to U.S.

Influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate, who face charges in Romania including human trafficking and sexual intercourse with a minor, have left for the U.S. after a travel ban on them was lifted, according to Romanian prosecutors.

The Tate brothers, who are dual U.S.-British citizens, were reported by Romanian media to have taken a private plane from the country to the U.S. early Thursday morning.

The brothers left Romania while under criminal investigation over accusations of having formed an organized criminal group, in addition to human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sex with a minor and money laundering. They have denied any wrongdoing.

Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, or DIICOT, said in a statement Thursday that prosecutors had approved a “request to modify the obligation preventing the defendants from leaving Romania,” but it said judicial control measures remained in place, The Associated Press reported. The agency did not expand on who had made the request.

The Tate brothers would still be expected to appear before judicial authorities if summoned and were warned that violating their obligations could “result in judicial control being replaced with a stricter deprivation of liberty measure,” DIICOT said.

Andrew Tate, 38, and Tristan Tate, 36, were arrested near Bucharest, Romania’s capital, in 2022 along with two Romanian women, with all four indicted by Romanian prosecutors last year.

The Bucharest Tribunal ruled in April that a trial could move forward, but did not set a date, with all four denying the allegations against them.

The Tate brothers’ departure to the U.S. comes after an American woman who says the siblings attempted to recruit into a webcam sex trafficking ring filed a countersuit against them earlier this month, claiming they had defamed her after she gave a testimony to Romanian authorities.

Jane Doe’s countersuit came after the Tate brothers sued her for defamation in 2023, accusing her and another woman of giving Romanian authorities fabricated evidence and conspiring to defraud and falsely imprison them. 

Her suit was the first U.S.-based lawsuit against the Tate brothers, who are both former kickboxers.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.