Andrew Tate ‘more serious’ human trafficking charge

Prosecutors in Romania have increased the severity of the human trafficking charge against the self-proclaimed misogynist influencer Andrew Tate.

Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian women are now charged with human trafficking in continued form — which was described as a more serious charge than separate counts of trafficking, Romania’s DIICOT anti-organized crime prosecutors said Tuesday.

The four suspects are also facing charges of rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

Each has been under house arrest in Romania since March 31 when they were released from a Bucharest jail after three months.

A seventh victim was also added to the investigation, a DIICOT spokesperson said.

The Tate brothers’ legal team claimed that the changes were actually in their clients’ “legal interest.”

“The legal framework has been revised and altered to ensure an impartial investigation is upheld,” the attorneys said in a statement.

Prosecutors previously said the four suspects “appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content.” 

The group then pocketed the proceeds, prosecutors alleged.

All four suspects have denied the accusations against them.

The case is still under investigation and is expected to be assigned a trial date later in June.

Tate, a British-US citizen, reportedly said that “probably 40% of the reason” he had moved to Romania in 2017 was because he believed it would be easier to evade rape charges in a now-deleted video, the Guardian reported.

“I’m not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free,” he reportedly said.

Trafficking of adult victims carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years in Romania.

The kick-boxer-turned-social-media-influencer has been accused of rape on numerous occasions in the past — all of which he denied.

Last week, a new victim came forward and alleged Tate, 36, effectively raped her after he strangled her until she was unconscious during sex and then continued to have sex with her unresponsive body.

“I thought I was going to die,” the 30-year-old accuser told The Independent, adding that Tate threatened to kill her during the act in 2014.

While she had initially consented, “I think as soon as the person you’re having sex with is unable to communicate what they want to do then that consent is just completely gone,” she told the BBC.

The woman, who spoke using a pseudonym out of fear for her safety, joins three other UK women who plan to sue Tate for alleged rape and physical abuse they faced while working as cam girls for the influencer when he lived in England from 2013 to 2016.

They have accused Tate of holding guns to women’s heads and strangling them with belts.

The abuse was first reported to police about eight years ago leading to the influencer’s arrest.

However the case was abandoned after prosecutors said the case didn’t meet their legal test.

The women’s lawyer said that the police failed to take the allegations seriously.

Also on Tuesday, DIICOT prosecutors said they opened a separate criminal investigation against a close associate of the Tate brothers who stands accused of a similar trafficking scheme.

The Romanian man Vlad Obuzic and two other suspects allegedly recruited women by pretending to want to date or marry them and instead coercing them to produce pornographic content for social media sights — which the suspects took the proceeds from.

Like accusations against Tate, the suspects allegedly forced the victims to get tattoos of their names or faces.

“To ensure the victims’ loyalty and that they will perform only to the benefit of the members of the group, they were forced to tattoo the name or face of the group member exploiting them,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Tate’s victims were reportedly branded with permanent “owned by Tate” tattoos, police sources have previously said.

The misogynist influencer has openly said he believed women belong to men.

“It’s not about being property, it’s about she belongs to him, and the intimate parts of her body belong to him because they’re in a relationship,” Tate told Barstool Sports’ in July. “And if she wants to sell those, he has a stake in those parts of her body.”

With Post wires