Trump intervention suspected as Andrew Tate, brother Tristan leave Romania for U.S. despite rape charges

London — Self-proclaimed misogynist social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have been allowed to leave Romania on a private jet bound for the U.S. despite facing rape and human trafficking charges that are still pending, CBS News’ partner network BBC News and the French news agency AFP reported Thursday. Citing sources in Romania, the outlets said the Tates, who are dual U.S.-British nationals, were flying to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Prosecutors in Romania have alleged for years that Andrew, 38, and his brother Tristan, 36, set up a criminal enterprise in the country and in Britain in 2021, along with two women, and used it to sexually exploit multiple people.

The brothers have always maintained their innocence, denying all charges against them in Romania, as well as separate allegations made by women in Britain, which are still being investigated by police in England.  

The Tates are due to return for a hearing in March, according to local media reports.

Romania’s organized crime prosecution unit DIICOT said the pair remained “under judicial supervision” and would have to “appear before the judicial authorities at every summons,” according to the AFP. 

“Violation in bad faith of the obligations incumbent on them may lead to the replacement of judicial control with a higher custodial measure,” DIICOT said.

Romanian aviation news website BoardingPass said Thursday that “a Gulfstream G550 private jet took off from Bucharest, Romania, bound for Fort Lauderdale” just after 6 a.m. local time (11 p.m. eastern on Wednesday).

It said the flight “will be operated non-stop and will last 12 hours.” 

The FlightRader24 tracking website showed a plane matching those details flying from Bucharest toward the United States early Thursday morning.

Pressure from the Trump administration?

DIICOT said in its statement that prosecutors had approved a “request to modify the obligation preventing the defendants from leaving Romania,” according to The Associated Press, but it made no mention of who had made the request.

Four British women who have accused Andrew Tate of rape and physical assault between 2013 and 2016 voiced concern last week that the U.S. government could be pressuring Romania to ease travel restrictions on the Tates, who have publicly supported Mr. Trump. 

The Financial Times reported earlier this month that the Trump administration was pushing Romanian authorities to return the Tate brothers’ U.S. passports and allow them to leave the country.

Romania’s Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu told the Euronews outlet recently that Mr. Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell had raised the case with him at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, but denied that he was pressured.

It is unclear whether the U.S. asked Romania to lift the travel ban on the Tates, and there was no immediate comment from the White House or State Department.

Cristi Danilet, a former judge in Romania’s northern city of Cluj-Napoca, told the AP that such a request would be unprecedented.

“I have never heard of a foreign government asking Romania to lift preventive measures to allow some suspects to leave the country,” he said. “If I had been a judge, this would not have happened.”

“If it is true, it means that there is no more rule of law and sovereign countries,” Danilet told the news agency.

Self-proclaimed misogynist

The four British women who have accused Andrew Tate responded to the news of the brothers’ travel to the U.S. with a joint statement on Thursday, saying they were “in disbelief and feel retraumatized by the news that the Romanian authorities have given into pressure from the Trump administration to allow Andrew Tate to travel around Europe and to the U.S.”

“We can only hope that the British authorities finally take action, do something about this terrifying unfolding situation and ensure he faces justice in the U.K.,” they said.

The women’s British lawyer Matthew Jury previously told the BBC that the women “are the victims of the most horrible and horrific alleged crimes.”

“To see the most powerful man in the world support their alleged abuser is incredibly traumatizing. It’s retraumatizing for them. It’s gaslighting of a sort,” he said.

The U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute Andrew Tate after the accusations made by the four British women, but the women have filed a civil suit.

In a separate probe, Bedfordshire Police obtained a European arrest warrant in 2024 for Tate and his brother Tristan “as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of rape and human trafficking” in 2024. It would be on these grounds that the pair would be extradited to Britain if and when that happens.

A Romanian judge decided last year that this would only happen after the Romanian case concludes. In December, a British court ruled that police could seize millions of assets belonging to the pair in the U.K. because of unpaid taxes. Tate described the decision as a “coordinated attack.”

Andrew Tate, a former international kickboxing champion, first gained wider fame by appearing on the British reality TV show “Big Brother” in 2016, before being kicked off after a video emerged showing him beating a woman with a belt.

He subsequently gained millions of followers online before being banned by TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, which accused him of posting misogynistic hate speech. He has more than 10 million followers on Elon Musk’s platform X, where he regularly posts homophobic and racist views.

Tate moved to Romania years ago after starting a webcam business in the U.K. He has since reportedly boasted that the business was a “total scam.” 

Domestic abuse charities and school advocacy groups have warned that Tate’s brand of extreme misogyny risks radicalizing men, and teenage boys in particular, to commit real-world harm.

Even after he was barred from most social media platforms, for instance, the “Safer Schools Northern Ireland” organization, which includes the British territory’s education department, warned that “Incidents involving him [Tate] in schools have significantly increased,” including “verbal harassment of female teachers and pupils, with actions mirroring Tate’s views.”