Andrew Tate and his brother ‘leave Romania for the US on a private jet’

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has said controversial influencer Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, are not welcome in the state. It comes after the brothers landed in Florida after the pair boarded a private plane from Bucharest, Romania. This is despite DeSantis having no idea that the brothers would be landing in the state and he said he learnt of the news from the media.

He said during a press conference: ‘No, Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct. ‘Our Attorney General, James Uthmeier, is looking into what state hooks and jurisdictions we have to deal with this.’. Andrew Tate hit back in defiance once his plane had landed in the state and said he is ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

The duo had been arrested in 2022 over allegations of human trafficking and rape, which they have denied. They have joint US and UK nationality but had been under house arrest for allegations of money laundering, trafficking minors and rape since their arrest three years ago.

In December, Tate’s trial into alleged human trafficking in Romania was halted because of ‘multiple’ mistakes made by prosecutors. The request for the appeals court to review the case was made by Tate’s defence team. His spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said the court’s decision ‘confirms the lack of credible evidence or consistency in the accusations’ by the prosecutors.

She added: ‘The review revealed significant procedural flaws and raised serious concerns about the integrity of the investigative process, further undermining the credibility of the prosecution’s case.’. The court effectively returned the case to the prosecutors, who can now bring forth new evidence to back up their charges or amend and change the existing ones.

In November, the same court gave prosecutors five days to amend their case file or withdraw it. In 2016, Andrew Tate was removed from the 17th series of Big Brother after just six days, after a video came out showing Tate hitting a woman with a belt.

When responding to the allegations made towards Harvey Weinstein in 2017, Tate wrote a number of vile tweets in which he stated that women should ‘bare some responsibility’ for being raped. In the same year, he was also criticised tweeting that depression ‘isn’t real.’.

In August 2022, following an online campaign by Hope Not Hate to deplatform him, Tate was permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram, losing 4.7 million followers. The 36-year-old was arrested in December 2022 in a raid on his property shortly after trolling climate activist Greta Thunberg in a video posted on Twitter – the timing of which has fuelled speculation the clip may have played a role in the police operation.

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