Prosecutors extended the charges in the Tate brothers’ case, sent them to trial

The investigation of the DIICOT prosecutors in the case of the Tate brothers has ended, and the two have been sent to court. They face up to 13 years in prison, after the list of charges was expanded at the end of the investigations. The prosecutors also officially requested the seizure of the two’s assets – 15 plots of land, luxury houses and apartments, 15 cars valued at several million euros and 14 luxury watches.

DIICOT prosecutors sued Andrew and Tristan Tate, in a case in which two Romanian citizens are also on trial. The four are accused of forming an organized criminal group, continuous human trafficking, continuous rape, illegal access to a computer system, altering the integrity of computer data, inciting to hit or other violence and hitting or other violence.

“In the case it was noted that, at the beginning of 2021, the four defendants constituted a criminal group organized in order to commit the crime of human trafficking on the territory of Romania, but also of other countries, such as the United States of America and Great Britain. The injured persons were recruited by the foreign nationals, by misleading them about the intention to establish a marriage/cohabitation relationship and the existence of real feelings of love (the loverboy method). They were later transported and housed in buildings in Ilfov County where, by exercising acts of physical violence and mental coercion (through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and the invocation of alleged debts), they were sexually exploited by group members by forcing them to perform pornographic manifestations in order to produce and disseminate them through social media platforms of materials having such a character. The 7 injured persons identified during the criminal investigation were subjected to the execution of a work, in a forced manner, in order to obtain important financial benefits consisting of the sums of money received as a result of accessing the materials by the users platforms”, the DIICOT indictment states.

The indictment requested the confiscation of several movable and immovable assets (unavailable and seized): 15 lands and buildings located within the counties of Ilfov, Prahova and Braşov, 15 luxury cars, 14 luxury watches, 2 ingots and a medal, the social shares held within 4 commercial companies, the amounts of 86,580 lei, 52,650 euros, 17,430 dollars and 10,370 pounds sterling and the amount of 21,080508 BTC, existing in cryptocurrency wallets (approximately 384,904,789 dollars), as well as obliging the defendants to pay some legal expenses advanced by the state in the amount of 300,000 lei.

The prosecutors proposed maintaining the preventive measure of house arrest ordered regarding the 4 defendants. The file was sent to the judges of the Bucharest Court.