Misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate has been ordered to spend another 30 days in prison by a Romanian court.
A court in the capital of Bucharest lengthened the arrest warrants of Mr Tate, his brother Tristan Tate, as well as two other suspects.
Mr Tate, a 36-year-old former kickboxing world champion who once referred to married women as “property” their husbands own, has been imprisoned in Romania since late December alongside his brother and two other suspects.
They have been detained on alleged rape and human trafficking offences – after Mr Tate lost his appeal to end his detention earlier in the month. The four deny all charges against them.
Local media Gandul reported the two Romanian women being detained will now be held under house arrest.
Prosecutors previously stated the Tate brothers managed to ensnare their victims by seducing them as well as falsely stating they wanted a relationship or marriage.
The victims were then transported to properties on the peripheries of Bucharest where physical violence and psychological intimidation was wielded to force the women to produce porn for social media sites that accumulated hefty profits, according to prosecutors.
Mr Tate, a “success coach” who is a dual British-US citizen, is banned from Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for infringing rules on “dangerous individuals” as well as breaking hate speech policies.
While Mr Tate was barred from Twitter in 2017, he had his Twitter account restored in November alongside that of former US president Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West in the wake of Elon Musk gaining control of the social media site. Tate has 4.9 million Twitter followers.
Last week, The Independent reported on an exclusive poll which found more young men in the UK have seen material from Mr Tate than have heard of Rishi Sunak.
Research found that eight in 10 boys aged between 16 and 17 had either read, listened to or watched content from Mr Tate.
Around six in 10 boys had heard of the PM and roughly four in 10 knew who London mayor Sadiq Khan was, just slightly more than around a third of boys who had heard of the Labour leader Keir Starmer.
The survey, carried out by leading anti-fascism charity Hope not hate, and shared exclusively with The Independent, found boys aged between 16 and 17 were 21 per cent more likely to have consumed Mr Tate’s material than had heard of Mr Sunak.
While The Independent previously reported on research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) which unearthed 47 videos of Mr Tate pushing what it describes as “extreme misogyny”.
The report uncovered adverts on videos where Mr Tate discusses fighting women, saying “grip her up by the neck” in a video, which has been viewed 1.6 million times, as well as referring to putting his “imprint” on 18-19-year-old girls in footage which has accrued 8.4 million views.
