A Romanian court late Friday extended the detention of internet personality and ex-UFC kickboxer Andrew Tate on charges of human sex trafficking, Reuters reports.
According to Reuters, Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested Thursday on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organized crime group.
The pair were taken into custody along with two other Romanian suspects during a raid of their properties on Thursday, and were to be detained for 24 hours, according to the report.
"The four suspects appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites for a cost," prosecutors said in a statement to the news outlet Thursday, later asking the court to extend the time for the suspects to be held.
"They would have gained important sums of money."
Prosecutors said they have six women who claim to have been sexually exploited by the brothers and the other suspects in the alleged ring.
"From our perspective, there are no grounds for taking this most drastic preventive measure, but it is the judge's prerogative," Reuters reported Tate's attorney Eugen Constantin Vidineac telling reporters after the court ruled Friday.
CNN reported that the raids Thursday targeted five properties, claiming the trafficking ring the brothers were a part of spanned Romania, Britain, and the United States, misleading victims into believing they were getting into "marriage or cohabitation" relationships before moving them to Romania where they were sexually exploited, coerced and exposed to physical violence.
Born in the United States, but claiming dual nationality with Great Britain, Tate rose to attention for his comments that women are partially to blame for rapes and other statements that have been called misogynistic and hate speech.
Tate has been banned from several social media outlets including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter where he was recently reinstated, Western Michigan University radio station WMUK reported.
He was thrown off the British television's version of "Big Brother" in 2016 for a video of him hitting a woman with a belt, something he denies and calls "a total lie."
Most recently, he has been using his fame with "Hustler's University" online where the company reports 168,000 members pay $49 per month for advice on copywriting and buying NFTs and earn commissions for recruiting additional members, the report said.
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