Just hours after Andrew Tate’s humiliating Twitter spat with local weather activist Greta Thunberg, the controversial influencer was arrested by Romanian authorities for human trafficking and rape investigation.
The 36-year-old former kickboxer, who gained infamy for his misogynist views, was apprehended by Romanian police after they descended on a villa the place he was staying together with his brother on Thursday.
It has been broadly speculated on social media that the arrest could have by no means occurred if he had not posted a clapback video to mock Ms Thunberg on Twitter.
Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, that had been ready for 9 months for the Tate brothers to return to Romania, mobilised forces and descended upon their villa after studying they have been in the nation by way of their social media posts, sources shut to the investigation advised Romanian outlet Gandul.
“Romanian authorities needed proof that Andrew Tate was in the country so they reportedly used his social media posts,” tweeted civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo, sharing a screenshot of Mr Tate’s video from the day earlier than.
“His ridiculous video yesterday featured a pizza from a Romanian pizza chain, Jerry’s Pizza, confirming he was in the country.”
However, in an interview with the Washington Post, Ramona Bolla, a spokeswoman for the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, denied that the pizza containers in the Twitter video performed an element in Mr Tate’s arrest, saying, “it was a hard job gathering all the evidence”.
It started after Mr Tate tried to mock Ms Thunberg and tagged the local weather activist in a Twitter post, asking for her electronic mail tackle so he might “send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions”.
The following day, the local weather activist responded with a tweet of her personal, replying, “Yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldi***energy@getalife.com.”
The alternate rapidly went viral, with Ms Thunberg’s submit garnering tens of millions of likes, and impressed quite a few trending matters.
Mr Tate hit again by sharing a response video, telling Ms Thunberg, a Nobel Prize nominee and Time particular person of the 12 months, to “get a life”.
In the video, Mr Tate smoked a cigar in a gown and an individual off-camera gave him a stack of pizza containers from the Romanian pizza chain, Jerry’s Pizza. He tried to joke about refusing to recycle the containers to taunt Ms Thunberg.
But Ms Thunberg had the final snicker, posting a tweet following Mr Tate’s arrest saying: “this is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”
The Tate brothers have been underneath prison investigation since April. They have been detained alongside two Romanian suspects.
“The four suspects … appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost,” prosecutors mentioned.
The former kickboxer gained a large following of men online, and has been banned from numerous social media websites, for his aggressive and oftentimes misogynistic views, together with that women should “shut the f**k up, have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee”.
His account on Twitter was reinstated alongside Donald Trump and Kanye West following Elon Musk’s takeover.
In 2016, he was booted out from the actuality TV present Big Brother, after a video emerged of him hitting a lady with a belt, and a second clip confirmed him telling the lady to rely the bruises he had left on her physique.