After weeks in the United States, influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate flew back to Romania early on Saturday, saying, “innocent men don’t run from anything.”
The Tate brothers were first arrested by police in December 2022 after a young woman reported being held captive in the brothers' home. She was one of several women who said they were held against their will and sexually exploited by the Tate brothers.
In addition to this case, an investigation was opened in Romania against them last year for child trafficking, sexual intercourse with a minor, money laundering and influencing statements.
The brothers' plane — which Andrew Tate said earlier in a post on X cost $185,000 to “jet across the Atlantic to sign one single piece of paper” — landed in Bucharest just before 0100 on Saturday morning.
After arriving at their residence near the capital, Bucharest, Andrew Tate told Euronews they vowed to clear their names in court.
“After all we’ve been through, we truly deserve the day in court where it is stated that we’ve done nothing wrong and that we should have never been in court in the first place. We should have never gone to jail. We should have never had our assets seized. We should have never had our names slandered," he said. “Anyone who believed any of this garbage has a particularly low IQ.”
Their return to Romania comes nearly a month after a travel ban imposed on the brothers was lifted, after which they flew on a private jet to the US, landing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Euronews correspondent Maria Moiș in Bucharest said the Tate brothers' departure to the US was criticised by some MPs at the time.
"There were suspicions that the US government had put pressure on the Romanian authorities to relax their conditions, especially after the Foreign Minister confirmed, at the Munich security conference, that he had spoken to the US representative about the Tate brothers," Moiș said.
"With such crimes, it is incredible how you can lift a house arrest," MP Alexandru Dimitriu had told Euronews at the time.
"And I am telling you this as a lawyer. Basically, at this moment, the justice system projects the following image: you have enough influence, you have enough money, the justice system cannot touch you," he had added.
Dimitriu had also claimed that the brothers helped the campaign of the far-right presidential candidate Călin Georgescu, who was later disqualified from the election. "We also learned, on the spot, that they also helped Călin Georgescu's campaign, with certain amounts of money and ways to influence online."
The brothers remain under judicial control, which requires them to appear before judicial authorities in Romania when summoned. Eugen Vidineac, one of the Tate brothers’ lawyers in Romania, told AP that the Tates are due to check in with a surveillance officer on Monday.
Days after the Tates arrived in the US, on 4 March, Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier said his office had opened a criminal investigation into Andrew and Tristan Tate. He said in a social media post that he directed his office to work with law enforcement to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the brothers.
A day after the investigation was opened, Andrew Tate said in a post on X: “I didn’t commit any crime and they’re trying to find one because they don’t like me."
The lifting of their two-year travel ban came after a Bucharest court in December ruled that a case against the brothers could not go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors. The case, however, remained open.
For his part, Tristan Tate said after returning to Romania, “I think it’s very telling that we were investigated for two and a half years, and we were dragged ... in front of the media, into prison, out of prison, all this time, and in December last year, a judge said ... there’s not evidence enough for this to even go to trial."
Last August, Romania’s anti-organised crime agency DIICOT also launched a second case against the brothers, investigating allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering. They have denied those charges as well.
Andrew Tate, 38, a former professional kickboxer and self-described misogynist who has amassed more than 10 million followers on X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.
“There are a lot of people in the world today that do not have faith in Romanian institutions ... but we’re going to restore that faith by coming home, as American citizens, going to court, and getting the not guilty that we deserve,” Andrew Tate said. “If a court needs to speak to us, we’ll be there because we’re innocent.”
The Tate brothers’ legal battles are not limited to Romania.
Four British women who accused Andrew Tate of sexual violence and physical abuse are suing him in the UK after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him.
In March last year, the Tate brothers appeared at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case after U.K. authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a case dating back to the period from 2012 to 2015.
The appeals court granted the UK's request to extradite the Tates, but only after legal proceedings in Romania were concluded.
