CNN
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Right-wing influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have left Romania on a private jet headed for the United States, their lawyer told CNN, after prosecutors lifted travel restrictions on the pair leaving the country.
The Tate brothers, who are dual US and UK nationals, had been banned from leaving Romania after being arrested in 2022 and charged with human trafficking, sexual intercourse with a minor, money laundering and starting an organized crime group. They have denied all wrongdoing.
Ioan Gliga, their lawyer, said the brothers left Romania Thursday morning and are flying to Florida.
“They no longer have a travel ban… The prosecutor, at the request of the lawyers, modified the content of the obligations previously imposed,” Gliga said.
The decision by Romanian authorities to lift the ban came after the US reportedly put pressure on Bucharest to ease restrictions on Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist who has a huge online following and has become a cause célèbre on the American right.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported, citing sources, that President Donald Trump’s administration had pressed Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on Tate, first in a phone call, then when Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell met Romania’s Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Hurezeanu later confirmed that he had discussed the Tate brothers with US officials, but said he had not been pressured to lift restrictions on them. A spokesperson for Romania’s Foreign Ministry told CNN on Thursday there was “no pressure, no solicitations” in the discussions.
In a statement Thursday, Romanian prosecutors stressed that only the travel restrictions had been lifted, while “all other obligations remain in effect, including the requirement to appear before judicial authorities whenever summoned.”
Gliga, the lawyer, told CNN that the Tate brothers will return to Romania in less than a month for their next court appearance on March 24.
However, a UK lawyer representing the alleged victims of the Tate brothers claimed that, now they have been allowed to leave the country, “any suggestion that the Tates will not face justice in Romania is fanciful.”
Matthew Jury, who represents British women who have filed criminal complaints of rape and sexual assault against Andrew Tate, said there was “clear evidence” that supports the allegations against him, and said that Bucharest had “embarrassed itself.”
“The news that pressure by the Trump Administration has led to Andrew Tate, and his brother Tristan, being allowed to leave Romania by its authorities is (in) equal parts disgusting and dismaying,” Jury said in a statement Thursday.
Later Thursday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to meet Trump for talks in Washington, DC. Tate also faces criminal accusations in the United Kingdom over sexual misconduct, which he denies.
Jury said he hopes Starmer uses his meeting with Trump “to raise this issue on behalf of the many British women who Tate is alleged to have raped and sexually assaulted who may now be denied justice.”
Tate – who shot to internet fame in recent years, racking up billions of views on TikTok with diatribes about male dominance, female submission and wealth – was banned from almost all social media platforms before Trump’s now adviser Elon Musk took over X and reinstated his account.
In Romania, the first criminal case against Tate and his brother failed in December when a Bucharest court decided not to start the trial, citing flaws in the indictment.
A Romanian court lifted a house arrest order against Tate in January, replacing it with a lighter preventative measure. In October, a court ruled he should get back luxury cars worth about €4 million ($4.43 million) that were seized by prosecutors, pending the investigations.