Romanian Prosecutors Indict Andrew Tate on Child Trafficking, Money Laundering and Witness Tampering Charges

Romanian prosecutors indicted Andrew Tate on Friday, September 4, on charges of trafficking minors, sex with a minor, money laundering and witness tampering, according to DIICOT, Romania's anti-organized crime prosecuting agency. His brother Tristan Tate was indicted for complicity in the same case, DIICOT said.

Andrew, 39, and Tristan, 38, were first arrested in Bucharest in late 2022 and formally indicted in 2023. In 2024 the Bucharest Court of Appeals sent the case back to prosecutors, according to CNN, after finding procedural irregularities and ruling some evidence inadmissible. Friday's indictment is the product of that redo.

What prosecutors allege

DIICOT says the brothers recruited victims by falsely promising relationships or marriage, then coerced them into producing pornographic content for an online webcam business. One alleged victim was 15 when Andrew Tate recruited her in Luton, England, in 2012, according to DIICOT, before she was repeatedly moved to Bucharest.

Prosecutors allege Tristan Tate knew the victim's age and, between 2014 and 2021, deceived her about his brother's "feelings and intentions" to keep her producing content. CNN and Al Jazeera both report DIICOT's claim that the brothers kept roughly $1.25 million, or about 80% of the victim's video-chat earnings.

DIICOT separately alleges that between December 2020 and mid-2021, Andrew Tate "repeatedly had sexual intercourse and sexual acts with another minor victim," also 15 at the time.

On the money laundering count, prosecutors say the brothers used roughly 825,000 euros ($957,000) between December 2023 and July 2024 to buy four luxury cars in an effort to disguise the origin of trafficking proceeds. DIICOT is seeking to have those vehicles confiscated. The witness tampering allegation, per CBC and CNN, is that victims were paid or intimidated in an effort to keep them from testifying or to get them to give false statements.

The Tates' response

The brothers have consistently denied every allegation against them. Their Romanian lawyer, Eugen Vidineac, said in a statement carried by Al Jazeera and CBC that the defense "will examine every aspect of the indictment with the same level of scrutiny and will challenge any evidential, procedural or legal deficiencies through the appropriate judicial process." Andrew Tate has also claimed publicly, without providing evidence, that he is the target of a political conspiracy.

The 2024 appellate ruling that sent the original case back over procedural problems and inadmissible evidence is a documented fact. Whether Friday's rewritten indictment fixes those specific defects is something a Romanian court will now have to determine.

What happens next

Under Romanian procedure, the indictment now goes to a preliminary court chamber, where a judge reviews the case files for legality, according to CNN. The law gives that judge 60 days to finish the review, but CNN notes such reviews routinely run far longer in practice. The Tates can legally be tried in absentia in Romania, but a trial start date is not imminent.

A DIICOT spokesperson told CNN it is not yet clear whether Romania will seek the brothers' extradition from the United States to face these charges. The Tates were arrested in Miami in late July 2026 after the United Kingdom requested their extradition on separate rape allegations, and a US judge has been weighing a bail request in that matter following an August 27 hearing.

The brothers remain in custody in Miami. No trial date has been set in Romania, no extradition request to the US has been confirmed, and the UK case proceeds on a separate track. Three governments now have open, unresolved legal questions involving the same two men, with no single court yet positioned to resolve all of them.