Andrew Tate’s detention in Romania replaced with house arrest
LA TimesAndrew Tate outside the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism in Bucharest, Romania, on Jan. 26. Andrew Tate, the divisive internet personality who has spent months in a Romanian jail on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, has won an appeal to replace his detention with house arrest, an official said Friday. The Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Tate’s appeal, which challenged a judge’s decision last week to extend his arrest a fourth time for 30 days, said Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT. Tate, 36, a British and U.S. citizen who has 5.4 million Twitter followers, was initially detained in late December in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women. DIICOT said in a statement after the December arrests that it had identified six victims in the human trafficking case who were allegedly subjected to “acts of physical violence and mental coercion” and sexually exploited by members of the alleged crime group.