{"id":407,"date":"2026-06-08T10:39:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=407"},"modified":"2026-06-08T10:39:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:39:24","slug":"andrew-tates-empire-of-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=407","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Tate\u2019s Empire of Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Just north of Bucharest is a neat development of red-gabled houses known as American Village. It is an unlikely place to be the center of an international criminal intrigue, but on its western border is a sprawling compound, patrolled by armed guards, that belongs to the British American influencer Andrew Tate and his younger brother, Tristan. The Tates moved to Romania a decade ago to build an online-pornography empire, and American Village was where they kept their recruits.<\/p>\n

Read more How the Knicks Are Beating the Spurs<\/a><\/p>\n

One day in April, 2022, Iasmina Pencov was in a villa near the compound, recovering from surgery. A slender, dark-haired former psychology student, she had met Andrew Tate the previous year and agreed to move across Romania to be with him. Tate had told Pencov that he considered her his wife, and when he first asked her to strip on camera she was appalled. \u201cI\u2019m old fashioned and I do believe in God,\u201d she texted him. \u201cMy body is intimate and only my husband should be able to touch and see.\u201d But he had worn her down\u2014\u201cidentified the objections and destroyed them,\u201d he wrote in private messages describing her recruitment. \u201cShe never believed in god. Women never believe in anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tate presided over an online network called the War Room, in which, for a fee of about eight thousand dollars a year, he promised to \u201cfree the modern man from socially induced incarceration.\u201d Members learned how to recruit women into \u201csexual slavery\u201d in a series of tutorials that Tate called his Ph.D., or \u201cPimping Hoes Degree.\u201d He had used Pencov as a teaching case, reporting on her subjugation over the secure messaging app Telegram. \u201cI\u2019ve done this with over 100 girls,\u201d he told members. \u201cI almost sound evil. But I\u2019m not. I\u2019m a shepard. Leading the sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pencov had become an online sex worker who staged live shows through the night and posted pornography on OnlyFans. The Tates had paid to have her teeth fixed, and then to have her breasts enlarged. The words \u201cTate Owned\u201d were tattooed in swirling letters across her upper arm, along with a cobra, Andrew\u2019s personal insignia. She remained passionately devoted to him. \u201cI love you enough to fight for you, compromise for you, and sacrifice myself for you,\u201d she texted him.<\/p>\n

Pencov was not alone in her devotion. The Tates used the same method to recruit all the women who came to American Village. \u201cYou have to fuck them, and they have to love you. It\u2019s essential to the business,\u201d Andrew explained in a video sold to War Room members. \u201cYou have to be militant with your fucking pimping.\u201d (I have pieced together an account of Tate\u2019s activities from thousands of private messages, internal documents, sealed prosecutorial files, and court records\u2014as well as scores of interviews with the Tates, their associates, and more than a dozen alleged victims.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Tates had moved to Romania from the United Kingdom in 2015, after three British women accused Andrew of rape and strangulation, and the brothers seemed to operate there with impunity. Court records show that local police sat on at least two reports indicating that the Tates were coercing Romanian women into sex work. Andrew openly discussed bribing law-enforcement officials in War Room chats, and bragged on social media about his connections. \u201cEVERYONE<\/em> wants to be friends with the pimp,\u201d he wrote in a since-deleted tweet. \u201cDoubt me? EPSTEIN HAD ACCESS TO PUSSY<\/em>. Look at his fucking friends list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pencov had been entrusted with supervising new arrivals at a villa in American Village where the brothers housed sex workers. Tate called her his \u201cmafia wife,\u201d and told her, \u201cit\u2019s important you and I work together and just control them all.\u201d She had become an eager accomplice. \u201cWe\u2019re the power team,\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n

Pencov was concerned about the latest recruit: a twenty-year-old aspiring musician whom Tristan Tate had romanced on a recent trip to Miami. The musician had refused to strip on camera, insisting that she had come to Bucharest to teach Tristan piano. Pencov found her demeanor \u201cweird and secretive\u201d; she had caught her talking furtively in her bedroom with another reticent newcomer.<\/p>\n

That day in 2022, Pencov heard a hammering at the front door. Another recruit went to answer it, and a voice asked if the American woman was inside. When the worker said yes, there followed a cacophony of voices, radios, and pounding boots as police stormed the property.<\/p>\n

It turned out that, soon after arriving in Bucharest, the American had begun sending distress messages back home. \u201cThese guys are actually evil,\u201d she had written. \u201cThey are definitely trafficking women.\u201d The other women in the house seemed \u201cbrainwashed,\u201d she said. The U.S. Embassy was alerted, and swiftly notified local police. A SWAT<\/em> team was deployed to take the women in the villa into protective custody.<\/p>\n

The Tates were questioned, and one of Romania\u2019s leading organized-crime prosecutors opened an investigation into suspected human trafficking. But the brothers were quickly released, and Andrew waved away reports of the incident, claiming that it had been a prank. He had been saying for years that he was \u201cabove the law,\u201d and he saw no reason to doubt it now.<\/p>\n

At the time of the raid, Andrew Tate was on the cusp of becoming one of the most famous men on the planet. He\u2019d amassed a vast following on social media, mixing posts about diamond watches, cigars, and supercars with jokes and misogynistic rants. He told alienated young men that they were the victims of a feminized society determined to crush their male essence, and urged them to get fit, get rich, and reclaim their \u201cnatural masculine imperative for power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Often, that imperative seemed to equate to sexual violence. In one video, Tate described the \u201cbasic moves of pimping\u201d while lying on his bed waving a machete. \u201cBang<\/em> out the machete, boom<\/em> in her face, then grip her up by the neck,\u201d he said. \u201cThe machete\u2019s on the floor, her panties are all wet, and you go fuck her. That\u2019s how it goes. Slap, slap, grab, choke. Shut up, bitch. Sex.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tate had risen to prominence in the online realm of incels, pickup artists, and red-pill believers known as the manosphere\u2014and he\u2019d engineered an ingenious way to expand his reach. Not long before the raid, he had launched Hustlers University, an online school that, for $49.99 a month, taught \u201cmodern wealth creation\u201d methods, including an affiliate-marketing program that functioned as a gigantic content factory. Members were given access to a library of Tate\u2019s videos, and earned commissions by reposting clips to attract new subscribers. More than a hundred and sixty thousand students enrolled, pumping Tate\u2019s content into algorithms already primed to amplify extreme ideas.<\/p>\n

In the months after the raid, videos tagged #AndrewTate were viewed more than twelve billion times on TikTok alone, and he became one of the world\u2019s most Googled people. His followers spread his rhetoric to millions of homes and classrooms. Teen-age boys around the world barked Tate\u2019s slogan \u201cMake me a sandwich\u201d at female teachers, and reports spread of sexual aggression by his followers.<\/p>\n

Tate\u2019s enormous reach made him a political force. He had always been an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump\u2014\u201cHe\u2019s grabbing bitches by the pussy. I like that guy,\u201d he\u2019d once said\u2014and he became a singularly influential proponent of masculinism: a creed, devoted to countering feminism and restoring the patriarchy, that helped unite the disparate factions of the MAGA<\/em> coalition. Tate called for women to be stripped of the vote, barred from the workplace, and forced to procreate. By comparison, conservative politicians\u2019 efforts to erode reproductive rights and roll back gender-equality laws seemed moderate. \u201cI have shifted the Overton window heavily since I became famous,\u201d Tate bragged.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2022, feminist and antifascist groups mounted a campaign to deplatform Tate, and he was ejected from mainstream social media. But the bans only enhanced his fame, with conservative pundits hailing him as a free-speech martyr. \u201cWe\u2019re adults and Americans, and we\u2019ll listen to anyone we want,\u201d Tucker Carlson said as he welcomed Tate onto his Fox News show. Tate played his part adroitly. \u201cWhen somebody who\u2019s championing men\u2019s issues like myself comes forward and finally manages to garner huge percentiles of the public support, I\u2019m silenced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tate made a deal with the right-wing streaming service Rumble, which had recently received major investments from Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire, and J.\u00a0D. Vance, Trump\u2019s future Vice-President. The details have not previously been confirmed, but a confidential contract shows an agreement to pay Tate at least six million dollars a year for a weekly quota of five short videos and a thirty-minute live stream. His presence inspired a forty-five-per-cent increase in active users, sending Rumble to first place on the Apple and Google charts. A few months later, Elon Musk bought Twitter and reinstated Tate\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

When Tate was arrested on human-trafficking charges, his allies defended him. Donald Trump, Jr., called the case \u201cabsolute insanity,\u201d and Musk suggested that the authorities were targeting the Tates while ignoring \u201cactual sex trafficking.\u201d Carlson, who had just released a documentary called \u201cThe End of Men,\u201d devoted hours of airtime to proclaiming Tate\u2019s innocence; so did the right-wing podcaster Candace Owens. The activist Charlie Kirk praised him onstage. \u201cWhat he says is so powerful,\u201d Kirk said. \u201cOur society is configured towards collapsing the American man.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prosecutors went on to allege that the Tates had trafficked dozens of women by using romantic relationships to lure them into sex work. Though the brothers were released from custody, they were barred from leaving Romania. Tate issued a defiant statement: \u201cThe Matrix has attacked me. But they misunderstand, you cannot kill an idea.\u201d To fight the charges, he hired an expensive team of lawyers, P.R. operatives, and private detectives.<\/p>\n

Tate\u2019s representatives claimed that he hadn\u2019t really meant what he\u2019d said online about sexually exploiting women\u2014he had simply been playing a character \u201cfor entertainment.\u201d At the same time, they devised a campaign to attack his accusers with scores of legal filings, while Tate\u2019s affiliate network harassed and smeared them online. Even one of his team members described it as \u201ctextbook victim intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the 2024 U.S. election approached, the team saw an opportunity. Tate forged relationships with Barron Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. In the weeks before the vote, he pumped out pro-MAGA<\/em> content, mobilizing young men in such large numbers that Kamala Harris later named him as a key factor in her defeat. When the result was in, Tate posted jubilantly on X: \u201cTHE PATRIARCHY IS BACK<\/em>.\u201d After the Inauguration, he added, \u201cThe Tates will be free, Trump is the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weeks later, under pressure from the U.S., Romania lifted the Tates\u2019 travel ban. Since then, the brothers have travelled the world, while the case appears stalled and the evidence remains sealed. When I met them earlier this year at a cigar lounge in Bucharest, they assured me that the prosecution was doomed. \u201cIt\u2019s just garbage out of a corrupt country,\u201d Andrew said, puffing a Davidoff and flashing pearly veneers. \u201cShow me a victim. Show me a hurt girl. Show me a bruise. Show me a girl chained up. Show me something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe times I struck a woman (in passion) I never left a mark,\u201d the Tates\u2019 father wrote on Facebook in 2011. \u201cSuper control of the human animal. They love me still.\u201d Emory Tate was a celebrated Black chess master who served as a staff sergeant and a linguist in the U.S. Air Force; he met their mother, a white British woman named Eileen Ashleigh, on a brief posting to the U.K. The couple married and moved to America, and in 1986 Andrew was born in a military hospital in Washington, D.C. Tristan came a year and a half later, followed by a sister, Janine. Andrew has described his father\u2019s influence in scores of posts, podcasts, and videos. \u201cMy dad was my hero in every way,\u201d he has said. \u201cI feared my dad. As if he was God himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Emory was brilliant, charismatic, and mercurial. In 1992, he was discharged from the Air Force after being diagnosed as having conditions that \u201cinterfere with military service,\u201d including narcissistic personality disorder. Back in civilian life, he was convinced that he was being monitored by the C.I.A., that the family car was being tailed, and that he was under attack by assailants from Eastern Europe. \u201cThe world he lived in was a scary world,\u201d Andrew has said. He remembered Emory telling him, \u201cYou\u2019re a Tate. They\u2019re going to come for you like they came for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family relocated to Elkhart, Indiana, to be close to Emory\u2019s mother. The brothers spent hours playing around their grandmother\u2019s house\u2014climbing trees, building forts, and racing through cornfields\u2014but their home life was fraught. Emory drank heavily and was prone to terrifying rages. Tristan told me that if he stepped out of line his father beat him with a belt, sometimes whipping him until his skin was striped red. Andrew has described lying awake at night in terror. \u201cI must have been the most awake child on earth,\u201d he said in one video. \u201cI was so afraid of the beatdown.\u201d In his telling, this violence was an essential part of becoming a man. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to kick my kid\u2019s ass if he gets fresh,\u201d he has said.<\/p>\n

In Indiana, Emory worked low-wage jobs\u2014at McDonald\u2019s, a car wash, a park\u2014but funnelled his ferocious intellect into chess, often staying up all night drinking and practicing variations. He started leaving the family to play in tournaments around the country. He would arrive by bus, wearing his trademark trilby, and hustle for spare dollars in chess parks. A dazzling attacking player, he became a folk hero on the circuit\u2014bringing \u201cthe flair and swagger to chess often seen on the basketball courts,\u201d the chess writer Daaim Shabazz noted\u2014but he lacked the discipline to reach grandmaster level, where serious winnings kick in. \u201cAs smart as my father was, chess doesn\u2019t pay,\u201d Andrew has said. \u201cHe also loved gambling, women, and booze. So you add all that up, we were very, very poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Emory returned to the family after an eight-week absence, Eileen confronted him over an infidelity, and he walked out again. \u201cWhen you\u2019re older, you\u2019ll understand,\u201d he told Andrew. \u201cYour mother won\u2019t shut up.\u201d As the marriage broke down, Andrew rationalized his father\u2019s abandonment. \u201cYou\u2019re a better role model to your son if you barely see him and live life on your own terms,\u201d he later wrote. \u201cA dad is a super hero. Not a full time carer. Don\u2019t sit and become a Bitch like the woman wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1997, the year Andrew turned eleven, Eileen moved the children to her home town of Luton, an impoverished and overcrowded municipality north of London. They stayed in a hostel for homeless women and children. \u201cIt was a horrible place to live,\u201d Tristan told me. Eileen got a job washing dishes in a school cafeteria, and he remembered that \u201cher hands were always bleeding and cracked.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Eventually, they moved to the Marsh Farm estate, a housing project plagued by crime and violent riots. The Tates went to a failing school, where they were bullied for their American accents and shabby clothes. Emory occasionally sent money, and the brothers would walk to a pay phone to call him. \u201cMy father raised me over the phone,\u201d Andrew has written. \u201cI was STILL AFRAID<\/em> of him, 3000 miles away.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a teen-ager, Andrew was dogged by a feeling of unease. \u201cI always had this sense that something wasn\u2019t quite right about the way the world functioned,\u201d he has said. He thought of himself like the character Neo in \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d restlessly searching without knowing what for. When the brothers walked to school together, they sometimes saw a Ferrari drive by, and Andrew became furious. \u201cHe\u2019s hacked the Matrix!\u201d he said. \u201cHow does he have four hundred grand for a car? He knows something we don\u2019t know!\u201d<\/p>\n

By seventeen, Andrew had left school and was working in a fish market, waking up at dawn to lug boxes of ice. He described being encumbered by a \u201ccrippling perpetual boredom\u201d that yielded only to danger. Seeking a remedy, he enrolled in a kickboxing gym run by a former Special Forces soldier from Bosnia. Soon, he was competing, and Tristan started training, too.<\/p>\n

Kickboxing is not much more lucrative than professional chess. The brothers initially fed themselves on canned sardines and chicken scrounged from abandoned KFC buckets. But, in the ring, Andrew exhibited his father\u2019s gift for showmanship. He called himself King Cobra, got a cobra tattooed on his chest, and developed a patter about drinking snake blood. In one post-match interview, he was red-faced and furious, fumbling with his mouth guard. \u201cThis is not sport to me,\u201d he seethed. \u201cI\u2019m in there to kill. That\u2019s it. Pain. That\u2019s all I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Tate\u2019s fighting career gathered momentum, his father showed an interest. In 2011, Andrew won his first world championship, and Emory wrote online, \u201cDestruction itself rides in his very fingertips.\u201d He also posted musings that seemed to provide his son with an ideological road map. He warned against \u201cenemies of alpha males,\u201d \u201cthe Matrix,\u201d and \u201cthe insanity of the ruling elite.\u201d He mocked the notion of gender equality and argued that \u201cmature men\u201d should be allowed to have sex with pubescent girls.<\/p>\n

Emory was still travelling between chess tournaments, and his posts were interspersed with blurry photos of hotels and dark city streets. He wrote about drinking vodka at 3 A<\/em>.M<\/em>. and inhabiting a state \u201cbetween ennui and dejection.\u201d At times, his tone was valedictory. \u201cI could clone myself. I would not,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe better versions of me already walk the planet.\u201d At others, it approached introspection. \u201cMany animals are immune to their own poison,\u201d he wrote, in 2012. \u201cThe toxic HUMAN<\/em> realizes that his toxin kills even himself, toxifies his kids.\u201d He died three years later, succumbing to a heart attack during a chess match. Andrew posted a tribute. \u201cHe created a monster,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAs a father should.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At the peak of Tate\u2019s fighting career, he spent part of each year competing across Europe, and he often based himself in Ko\u0161ice, Slovakia, an elegant medieval city of pastel town houses and Gothic spires. During one visit, he met Bibiana Hruskova, a high-school student with hazel eyes and blond hair, who was working as a waitress. Tate has said that they met in 2012, the year he turned twenty-six and she turned fifteen. He had taken to collecting girlfriends on his travels, and Hruskova became one of them. \u201cI had a girlfriend in Slovakia, I had a girlfriend in France, I had a girlfriend in England,\u201d he later said. \u201cDo they know about each other? No.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hruskova was besotted with Tate. \u201cYoure the best thing ever happened to me,\u201d she texted him. \u201cI want babiiies and get married.\u201d In 2014, when she turned seventeen, Tate summoned her to England. She left her family and went.<\/p>\n

By then, Tate was a three-time kickboxing world champion, but, even at the top of the sport, he generally made only about fifty thousand dollars for a title fight; after he paid his manager and his trainer there was little left over. In early 2014, he sat down to make a list of everything he owned. It was a dispiriting exercise. He and his brother shared a run-down apartment with barely any furniture. He owed money on his car. But then he had what he considered a flash of entrepreneurial genius. \u201cI had about five girlfriends, all smoking hot\u2014and females are an asset,\u201d he recalled, in a video. \u201cPussy is the only reason that empires were started and wars were waged.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. I had to find a way to monetize the assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate knew some street pimps, and he contemplated that route, but he didn\u2019t want other men touching what he saw as his property. Opening a strip club was too expensive. Then he stumbled on an ad for a webcam-porn site. He flew all of his girlfriends to Luton and assembled them at a restaurant, where they learned of one another\u2019s existence. \u201cI said, \u2018Listen, young ladies, I\u2019m starting a webcam business,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Tate later recalled. \u201c\u00a0\u2018This is going to change your life.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the women left, but Hruskova stayed. Tate set up a profile for her on a site called MyFreeCams, which allows users to watch models for free, then pay them to perform specific sex acts or private shows. Filming sexual imagery of anyone under eighteen is illegal in the U.S. and the U.K. On camera, Hruskova became a Russian woman in her twenties, performing under the username KissofaCobra. Tate persuaded her to get a tattoo of a cobra down one side of her body and another reading \u201cTate Property\u201d above her crotch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Webcam porn, now a multibillion-dollar industry, was then a nascent phenomenon, and Tate considered himself a pioneer. \u201cWe started doing fifteen-, sixteen-, seventeen-hour days,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d wake up to go piss, and by the time I finished pissing I was awake enough to say, All right, two hours\u2019 sleep, that\u2019s enough.\u201d He realized that he could extract bigger tips from customers if he wrote them seductive messages off camera while Hruskova pretended to type on a disconnected keyboard. \u201cI had these guys selling their houses, life savings, loans, all of it,\u201d he later said. \u201cI put together an apparatus of genius behind the avatar of beauty, and we fucking conquered.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Tate controlling her performances, Hruskova became a fan favorite. \u201cI think I\u2019ve fallen in love (again),\u201d one user wrote. For a price, Tate would have sex with her on camera. In one video, he keeps his face out of view as he penetrates Hruskova from behind, but the distinctive cobra tattoo on his chest and arm is clearly visible. \u201cShe will perform anal sex in front of hundreds of viewers, who will keep tipping to push her boundaries,\u201d a review site noted.<\/p>\n

Tate has claimed that, in the first month with Hruskova on camera, he made more than a hundred thousand dollars; the brothers bought an Aston Martin. That April, Andrew won the kickboxing world championship for a fourth time. But he soon stepped back from the sport to focus on expanding his webcam business, telling a kickboxing magazine that he was now a \u201cpimp superstar.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Tate warmed to his new career, he adopted a motto: \u201cThere are only two categories of people\u2014pimps and hoes.\u201d He was quoting the infamous Chicago pimp Ken Ivy, who published a book called \u201cPimpology\u201d and another titled \u201cThe Art of Human Chess.\u201d Tate studied both volumes closely.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeduction is a chess game and to the victor go the spoils,\u201d Ivy wrote, in a treatise on recruiting sex workers. \u201cTo master someone completely, they have to depend on you for everything,\u201d he instructed. \u201cMost hoes have low self-esteem for a reason. A pimp looks for that weakness, and if it isn\u2019t on the surface, he brings that motherfucker out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Webcam work, unlike prostitution, is generally legal. But it is illegal almost everywhere in the world to recruit sex workers using force, fraud, or coercion\u2014including psychological manipulation. Tate wasn\u2019t concerned. As he started searching for new recruits, he bought a replica of the gloves that featured in O.\u00a0J. Simpson\u2019s murder trial and got the word \u201cpimp\u201d embroidered on the palms.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2014, he reached out on Facebook to a twenty-year-old British woman whom I\u2019ll call Maya Navarro. He sent a recruiting video of Hruskova sprawled on a bed, tapping on a keyboard. \u201cJust typing to some guys is the easiest money in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Navarro was living with her mother, who had worked for years in a warehouse, and her younger brother, who had learning difficulties. Her father had recently become homeless, and since leaving school she had been precariously employed. She agreed to meet Tate for coffee to find out more.<\/p>\n

Navarro told me that Tate was \u201cvery charismatic, very confident.\u201d He showed her screenshots of the money coming\u00a0into Hruskova\u2019s webcam account and said that he would make her rich, so that she could travel the world and help her family. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever spoken to anybody in my entire life that had said those kinds of things to me,\u201d Navarro told me.<\/p>\n

Soon afterward, Tate picked Navarro up from her mother\u2019s house and drove her to a block of apartments above a convenience store. Up a dark stairway lit by flickering bulbs, he showed her into a room with a mattress on the floor and a computer station in the corner. \u201cIt was skanky,\u201d she told me, but Tate assured her that they would soon be moving to a penthouse. He plied her with wine and directed her to lie on the mattress, pretending to type, while he messaged customers from the computer. That first night, he let her keep her underwear on, and it didn\u2019t feel so bad.<\/p>\n

When Tate picked her up for the second shift, there was a young woman, whom I\u2019ll call Emilia Walker, in the back seat. Navarro knew Walker a little from school and felt more at ease with her there. Between stints on camera, they laughed and drank bottles of ros\u00e9 that the brothers supplied. At the end of the week, Tate gave each woman several hundred pounds in cash\u2014more than Navarro had ever held. She said that he drove them to a shopping center and declared, \u201cYou\u2019ve got money now. Start spending it.\u201d Navarro bought a Michael Kors watch and, after a few more shifts, a pair of Louboutin heels; it was such a thrill that she kept the receipt as a trophy. \u201cI felt really, really proud of myself,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was kind of, like, Oh, this is what my life can be like if I stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Tate was already coming to resent paying Navarro and Walker a cut of their earnings. Hruskova let him keep \u201c100% of the fucking money,\u201d he later said. But, he complained, \u201conce you get bigger, you start hiring girls who don\u2019t love you.\u201d He decided on a strategy: \u201cI have a financial incentive to fuck as many as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Before long, Tate told Navarro and Walker they would now be working from a room in a Hilton hotel in Luton. On the second night, the women fell asleep there, and Navarro said that she woke up to find Tate behind her, touching her legs. Then, she said, he pulled down her underwear and grabbed her throat, forcing himself inside her. \u201cYou\u2019re such a good little girl,\u201d she remembered him saying, while he choked her until she struggled for breath. Navarro said that she repeatedly told Tate to stop, and tried to loosen his grip on her throat, but he continued.<\/p>\n

Navarro recalls that she passed out afterward, and woke up beside Tate feeling \u201cdisgusting, ashamed, dirty.\u201d She left and returned to her mother\u2019s house, but resuming normal life was hard. \u201cMy crappy house, my crap bedroom, and my tiny little bed\u2014that definitely put it into perspective,\u201d she said. \u201cSlowly, I was, like, I should go back, because that\u2019s the most money I\u2019ve ever made.\u201d She told herself that she\u2019d be firmer with Tate: \u201cI was, like, Maybe he won\u2019t do it again. Maybe he\u2019ll just leave me alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

By March, 2015, Tate had moved his webcam operation to Hitchin, a market town outside Luton. He\u2019d rented an airy four-bedroom apartment, with a roof terrace overlooking a quaint stone church and a riverbank of willows. When Navarro returned, she thought that it was the nicest place she\u2019d ever stayed.<\/p>\n

Tate was now calling Emilia Walker his girlfriend, and they were sharing a bed. Navarro found Walker spirited and funny, a good companion. \u201cShe kind of made the place like home,\u201d she told me. The two women retreated to the rooftop whenever they got a break, to smoke, joke around, and get some sun.<\/p>\n

Tate had hung up a poster commissioned from a local artist. It depicted him on a throne, holding a cane that he called his \u201cpimp stick,\u201d with three women leaning over him in stilettos and thongs. \u201cBig Tate carrys a cane to keep his hoes sane,\u201d it said, in pink bubble writing. He\u2019d also had a poster made for his brother, who was recruiting webcam workers of his own. Tristan\u2019s poster depicted him dressed as a buccaneer, above the words \u201cThe captain\u2019s word is LAW<\/em>.\u201d Navarro said that Tristan would walk around the apartment wearing a tricorne hat and waving a foam sword, declaring, \u201cI am the captain of the money ship.\u201d There was an absurdity to it all that took the edge off the menace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There were half a dozen women working in the apartment\u2014including Hruskova, whom Navarro recognized from the video that Tate had sent. Tate was \u201chorrible\u201d to Hruskova, Navarro said, calling her \u201cfat and ugly.\u201d When he was around, Hruskova seemed to vie for his attention, \u201ctrying to be the alpha female in the house.\u201d When he was gone, though, she seemed \u201clike she didn\u2019t want to be there, but she was scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hours were gruelling, and Navarro downed several bottles of wine during each shift, trying to stay disinhibited enough to do what customers asked. By the time she finished, she was drunk and desperate for sleep. At first, the brothers drove her home, but after a while, she said, they refused and she had to sleep over. There were only two beds in the apartment, and Tristan slept upstairs with several women he\u2019d recruited\u2014so Navarro ended up crashing in the bed that Walker shared with Tate.<\/p>\n

One morning, Navarro woke up to Tate and Walker having sex next to her. She shushed them, and Walker got up and went into the bathroom. When she was gone, Navarro said, Tate put her in a choke hold and raped her for a second time. Though she clawed at his arms, he wouldn\u2019t release his grip. \u201cI was scared that he was going to kill me,\u201d she told me. Then Walker emerged from the shower, and he rolled off her.<\/p>\n

Later, Navarro said, she was working on camera when she heard strange noises and went to investigate. Through the open bedroom door, she saw Tate strangling Walker on the bed. Walker\u2019s face was red and puffy, and her body was limp. Navarro said that she felt a strange paralysis. \u201cI was, like, There\u2019s nothing I can do about it,\u201d she told me. She went back to work.<\/p>\n

The following morning, Navarro and Walker were putting on makeup in the bathroom when they noticed clusters of red spots around their eyes. Walker searched online and saw that petechiae\u2014burst blood vessels\u2014can be a sign of acute pressure in the head from strangulation. The women began to panic. Hearing a commotion, the Tates came to the door. When they saw the marks, they laughed. \u201cYou\u2019re such dumb bitches,\u201d Navarro remembers them saying. \u201cThat\u2019s from sleeping on the silk sheets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro said that Tate started attacking her at random moments. Multiple times, when she slept late, he whipped her with a belt. Time became a blur, and the world outside the apartment seemed to recede. But, one day, Navarro had a moment alone, and something snapped: she walked out the door and never went back.<\/p>\n

Walker left soon afterward, and the two women gradually began talking about what had happened. Though Walker had started sleeping with Tate consensually, she said that he had attacked her many times, choking her till she almost passed out. That summer, the women contacted the Hertfordshire police.<\/p>\n

As it happened, Tate was already known to the authorities. The previous spring, another woman had gone to the police to make similar allegations. The woman, whom I\u2019ll call Hannah Price, said that she had briefly dated Tate the previous year but told him that she wasn\u2019t ready for sex. In the course of several weeks, she said, he raped and strangled her twice. Price showed police a series of messages from Tate discussing the alleged assaults. \u201cI love raping you,\u201d he had written to her. \u201cMonsters are monsters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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(Tate says that he did not strangle any of the women, and that the sex was consensual. But he has repeatedly advocated throttling women during sex as a way to assert masculine power. \u201cChoke her so she can barely fucking breathe, tell her she\u2019s yours forever,\u201d he said in one podcast. \u201cYou just have to be a large enough force to program her.\u201d Price and Walker declined to be interviewed, but have described being assaulted by Tate in court filings.)<\/p>\n

Tate was arrested on suspicion of assault, but he denied everything and was quickly released. Back at the apartment, he arranged for several webcam workers to give statements on his behalf. \u201cWe\u2019re going to bury this shit and carry on with our lives,\u201d he told them. Then, before the case could move forward, he and Tristan left for Romania. \u201cFuck England,\u201d Tate said. \u201cI\u2019m bouncing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tates\u2019 compound outside Bucharest lies behind heavy security gates. Inside is a courtyard with an underlit swimming pool and a line of parked supercars\u2014Aston Martins, Lamborghinis, and Bugattis. The house is a vast converted warehouse, clad in gleaming black panels, with the name \u201cTate\u201d mounted on the wall in huge white letters, next to an emblem of a chess knight. A wrought-iron samurai statue stands by a bulletproof door.<\/p>\n

When I visited, this March, Tristan showed me around. He is physically imposing\u2014six feet four and about two hundred and thirty pounds\u2014but his manners were polished. He ushered me into a cavernous space, where the brothers\u2019 kickboxing belts hung on a wall, alongside a photograph of their father. Glass-topped display tables held a replica handgun, gold bullets, and brass knuckles. In a wood-panelled cigar lounge, Tristan showed me a towering safe sheathed in burgundy leather, which he said had contained \u201cwatches and millions of dollars in cash and gold\u201d before the raid. Security cameras covered every inch of the compound, except the bedrooms. \u201cI\u2019ve made it into a fortress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2015, when the Tates decided to leave England, Andrew\u2019s plan was \u201cI\u2019ll just run around the world, and I\u2019ll be above the jurisdiction of any one place.\u201d Then a friend from his kickboxing days called from Romania. Sebastian Vieru ran a mixed-martial-arts company with backing from two brothers, Mih\u0103i\u021b\u0103 and Sorin Doroftei, who were later indicted for heading one of the largest criminal cartels in Romanian history. (They deny the allegations.) Tate was fascinated by his friend\u2019s connections. He became a partner in the cage-fighting business, and then began investing in real estate. Tate boasted in texts about how easy it was to \u201chide\u201d cash in Romanian property. \u201cTurn up with money in a bag,\u201d he wrote. \u201cNo banks no mortgage no bullshit no tax.\u201d He later partnered with the Dorofteis to open a series of casinos, which he described as \u201cbig time mafia shit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To Tate, Romania seemed like a gangster\u2019s paradise. He bragged about bribing officials, filling his house with guns and machetes, and hiding money from the authorities through cryptocurrency. He repeatedly claimed to have used mafia and police contacts to hunt down people who had crossed him. \u201cPlease do not underestimate how connected I am in Romania,\u201d he tweeted. \u201cMPs Police chiefs Street thugs ANYTHING<\/em> can be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tates had brought Hruskova and several other women from the U.K., and put them to work in properties around Bucharest. They hired a former member of Romania\u2019s security services, who recruited dozens of guards to protect them. Tate said that he also consulted a local lawyer about the potential implications of being accused of assaulting a woman, and was assured that without \u201cphysical evidence\u201d she would have no case. \u201cThis is probably forty per cent of the reason I moved to Romania, because in Eastern Europe none of this garbage flies,\u201d Tate later explained in a video. \u201cI\u2019m not a fucking rapist. But I like being able to do whatever I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

During my visit, the Tates strenuously denied that they had hurt a single woman. \u201cI\u2019ve never done anything wrong in my life,\u201d Andrew told me. He insisted that none of the women he\u2019d recruited had accused him of crimes, adding, \u201cThey\u2019re still my friends.\u201d By the time police raided his properties, he said, \u201cthe webcam business\u2014which, by the way, is not illegal\u2014had been closed for ten years.\u201d He showed no trace of emotion as he lied.<\/p>\n

In Romania, the Tates turned their small-time webcam enterprise into a kind of industrial operation. Their approach to recruiting resembled what trafficking experts call the \u201clover-boy method.\u201d They trawled dating apps and social media for young women, blasting out hundreds of identical messages and frequently changing their location to expand their reach. Women who responded were romanced. Tate sent one a flurry of questions: Where did she want to travel? Had she ever been skydiving? Had she ever seen a Dubai sunset? Those who proved susceptible were groomed for sex work. \u201cEvery day, I sent twenty Instagrams. Every day, I was on a date. I was fucking four girls, five girls a week,\u201d Tate said in a War Room video. \u201cI built my business off the back of my dick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate had learned from Ken Ivy, the \u201cPimpology\u201d author, the importance of having a \u201cbottom bitch.\u201d He needed a recruiting sergeant who could lure in other women, and he assigned this role to Hruskova. After he slept with a woman, Hruskova would come in to \u201csell the dream\u201d of webcam work, he explained in a War Room video. \u201cBefore this, I was a waitress, and it was shit,\u201d he coached her to say. \u201cNow I do this, I make so much money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In fact, Tate said, Hruskova saw little of the money she generated. He reported in private chats that her live streams had made him around two million dollars, but all she got was pocket money for coffee and manicures. \u201cShe works hard to please me. To get attention,\u201d he said. He was certain that she would never leave him. \u201cI own her mind,\u201d he told associates. \u201cIf I died, she would commit suicide.\u201d (One worker from that time told me that Hruskova seemed to have lost the capacity for independent thought. \u201cShe\u2019s not herself\u2014she\u2019s like an extension of Andrew,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were all brainwashed.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After the initial pitch, Tate would get his target and Hruskova drunk and have sex with them. \u201cMartinis, Martinis, Martinis. Bam. Threesome. Slam them both,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s how you recruit.\u201d The compulsory group sex continued once the women were employed. \u201cEvery day after work for me was a threesome, foursome, fivesome, orgy,\u201d Tate said. He wrote to one eighteen-year-old about a threesome with Hruskova, \u201cYou can be little sisters and hold hands while you get dick.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women lived in the brothers\u2019 properties, and the most prized workers were not allowed to go out unattended or to have relationships with anyone but the Tates. Otherwise, Andrew explained, \u201cthat other person she\u2019s fucking is going to have the control over her mind.\u201d Each brother had a personal \u201charem.\u201d Tate called the women his wives, and ordered them to address him as \u201cking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Often, the recruits came from troubled homes or were living in poverty. One former member of Tate\u2019s \u201charem\u201d told me that she had found his initial love-bombing intoxicating: \u201cYou go along with it, and, before you know it, you\u2019re in absolute hell.\u201d Tate had a way of \u201ccasually peppering the abuse through day-to-day life,\u201d she said. \u201cHe kind of serves it to you in a tongue-in-cheek, humorous way, but it\u2019s deadly serious.\u201d Physical abuse was often disguised as \u201crough sex.\u201d Once, she said, Tate beat her so hard that she sustained lasting injuries to her eye and breast. \u201cYou\u2019re a sexually violent person,\u201d she texted him afterward. He replied, \u201cYou never told me to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Romania, Tate rarely seemed to face consequences for his actions. In the summer of 2016, though, he risked returning to the U.K. to appear on the reality show \u201cBig Brother.\u201d People who had seen his early sex shows with Hruskova remembered him, and some of the footage was leaked online.<\/p>\n

In one video, Tate lay on a bed and ordered Hruskova to show the camera her tattoo. \u201cWhy does it say \u2018Tate\u2019?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m his whore,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy\u2019s your ass got a bruise on it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause my daddy hits me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate picked up a belt and began whipping Hruskova as she lay in the fetal position, sobbing. \u201cBitch, look at the camera,\u201d he told her, yanking her head back by the hair. \u201cThis is what happens when you don\u2019t fucking listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sun<\/em>, a leading tabloid, reported on the footage, and Tate was forced out of the \u201cBig Brother\u201d house. He posted a protest online: \u201cWe were having a laugh? The sun are morons.\u201d He said that Hruskova was an ex-girlfriend, and shared a photo of her holding a belt inscribed with the words \u201cBut I love when Andrew spanks me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Tate\u2019s removal from \u201cBig Brother\u201d had nothing to do with the videos. The Hertfordshire police had contacted the producers to inform them of the assault allegations from Navarro, Walker, and Price. But officers apparently missed indications of another crime: child pornography. Tate said that the belt video was made in 2012, at the start of his relationship with Hruskova. That year, she turned fifteen.<\/p>\n

As the webcam business expanded, a British entrepreneur named Naomi John was brought in to help. John had grown up in Bedfordshire, not far from the Tates, and as a young woman had opened a swimwear store called Sandstorm Boutique. The store became a sponsor of the Miss World beauty pageant, and John served as a judge for Miss Universe Great Britain, a significant recruiting pipeline for models.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the Tates persuaded John to move to Bucharest. They had launched a recruitment agency called Model Stars, and they wanted their role in it to be obscured. Model Stars was described in promotional materials as an \u201call-female business,\u201d in which \u201cwomen help other women to escape the 9-5 work schedule and earn life-changing amounts of money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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John\u2019s job, according to sealed court filings and interviews with women who worked for her, was to help recruit webcam workers and control their profiles on streaming sites. \u201cI don\u2019t want them to have passwords,\u201d Tristan texted John. \u201cI want the money to be used by me and you, fuck them.\u201d John directed the women on camera, telling them which positions to adopt and which sex toys to use. \u201cShe was the brain, and I was the looks,\u201d one recruit told me. Another worker\u2014in her late teens, with pink hair and braces\u2014was renamed Chloe Skittles and posed in a room with jars of candy above the bed.<\/p>\n

One of John\u2019s first recruits, Abigail Tyson, was working in a bathroom-supply store in the struggling English port town of Grimsby when she got an Instagram message from Model Stars. Tyson told me that she spoke to John over Skype and found her \u201creally lovely, like a friend that I\u2019ve known for a long time.\u201d The shop paid about three hundred pounds a week; John assured her that she would earn much more from Model Stars.<\/p>\n

In Bucharest, Tyson was brought to a house where the brothers were staying with several other women. She\u2019d never had a serious boyfriend, and she was mesmerized by Tristan. \u201cI\u2019ve never met someone who is so, so intelligent like him,\u201d she said. They soon started sleeping together.<\/p>\n

Tyson proved to be a relentlessly hard worker, streaming for seventeen hours straight and sometimes performing live sex shows with Hruskova. Tristan described her in private messages as his \u201cmain income,\u201d adding that after several years she was \u201cSTILL<\/em> in the dark\u201d about how much money her streams made. According to court filings, she went on to earn him close to a million dollars. She also bore him a child.<\/p>\n

Tyson is one of several former workers Tristan put me in touch with, saying that they would vouch for his innocence. Talking to me over Zoom, while her five-year-old daughter with Tristan played in the background, Tyson told me that the Tates\u00a0were \u201cjust big, cuddly Teddy bears.\u201d The other women Tristan recommended also rejected the idea that they were victims. But even one of the Tates\u2019 defenders described Tristan as behaving like a \u201cdictator,\u201d and said that, when she decided to leave, he attacked her verbally and hacked her social-media accounts. One of his associates threatened to set fire to her car.<\/p>\n

The Tates\u2019 messages show that they repeatedly ordered associates to punish women by hijacking their social-media accounts and posting pornographic images of them to their followers. When another worker fled the operation, Tristan told Naomi John to log in to her Instagram account and \u201cburn it down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCool I feel like burning stuff down,\u201d John replied.<\/p>\n

At the peak of the webcam business, the brothers reported, they had seventy-five women working for them; Andrew said that more than thirty women had his name tattooed on their skin. John returned to the U.K. and established a webcam house for the brothers in Hertfordshire. She couldn\u2019t be reached for comment, and it is unclear how much she knew about the Tates\u2019 recruitment methods. But several women who worked for the operation offered the same theory about her motivations. \u201cObviously, she was benefitting from it\u2014she got her percentage,\u201d one said. \u201cBut I\u2019m pretty sure she was in love with Andrew and trying to please him.\u201d At one point, Tate\u2019s messages show, he recorded a video about \u201conly seeing a girl part time but loving her\u201d and sent it to nine women, leading each to believe that it was exclusively for her. The names attached to the women\u2019s numbers in his phone included Jackass, Useless, Crazy Bitch, and Naomi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tate flaunted his growing wealth on social media, and a following coalesced. He showed a gift for pop-culture provocation, with posts that often went to the top of the trending charts. One of his first viral sensations started with a series of gibes at fans of \u201cStar Wars.\u201d \u201cEveryone who\u2019s ever watched star wars in human history is absolutely dirt poor,\u201d he posted, alongside a photograph of himself on a yacht. \u201cEven watching a\u00a0star wars trailer may leave you homeless, on the street, with aids.\u201d Tate also taunted vegetarians (\u201cThe souls of dead animals power my massive wang\u201d), lovers of Japanese cuisine (\u201cYou know who eats sushi? Little fucking soy boys. Little fucking Democrats\u201d), and people who preferred to drink still water (\u201cYou scared of bubbles, you little bitch?\u201d).<\/p>\n

His fans looked to him for entertainment, but also for inspiration. Tate projected a credo of masculine excellence that revolved around self-discipline, physical prowess, and mental fortitude. He insisted that \u201cdepression isn\u2019t real\u201d and told sufferers to stop complaining and start working out. For young men feeling dejected by the public conversation about toxic masculinity, Tate\u2019s celebrations of manhood were galvanizing, and his mocking assaults on feminism felt bracingly irreverent. \u201cThe reason feminists think men are losers is because the only men that bother to interact with feminists ARE<\/em> losers,\u201d he posted.<\/p>\n

At the height of the #MeToo movement, Tate tweeted that women should \u201cbare some responsibility\u201d for being sexually assaulted. During the controversy that followed, his disdain for women began cohering into a political identity. He appeared on Infowars and then at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he was photographed with Candace Owens, the right-wing television personality Jack Posobiec, and the far-right British politician Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n

After the 2016 election, Tate had posted a string of pro-MAGA<\/em> tweets, and he began messaging with Donald Trump,\u00a0Jr. Eventually, he secured an invitation to Trump Tower. \u201cThat was the first time he had ever had any kind of interaction with anyone that big,\u201d his former \u201charem\u201d member told me. \u201cIt was like a drug to him.\u201d After the visit, he posted a photograph of himself in a gold-embroidered blazer, clasping hands with a grinning Trump, Jr. He wrote, \u201cThe tate family support trump FULLY. MAGA<\/em>!\u201d Tate started selling an online course called Network Brilliance, in which he declared, \u201cI have access to the president\u2019s son,\u201d and claimed to know \u201cevery big person in politics on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate\u2019s longest-standing political connection was to Tommy Robinson, a far-right agitator whose Islamophobic rhetoric and inflammatory claims about Asian sex-grooming gangs have stoked violent unrest across several British cities. Robinson also grew up in Luton, and he and Tate knew each other well.<\/p>\n

Tate was intrigued by one of Robinson\u2019s allies, the Canadian activist Lauren Southern. She had become a darling of the manosphere at the age of nineteen with a video titled \u201cWhy I Am Not a Feminist,\u201d in which she argued that men were the real victims of an unjust society. She followed up with a series of videos in which she trolled women who marched against sexual violence, ridiculing their views and holding up a sign saying \u201cTHERE IS NO RAPE CULTURE IN THE WEST<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In February, 2018, Tate asked Robinson to bring Southern to Romania to discuss a business venture. She told me that she flew to Bucharest without knowing much about Tate; Robinson had simply said that a kickboxer in Eastern Europe wanted to finance her work. When they arrived, Tate was waiting in one of his supercars, and he insisted on taking her out for lunch alone. Over steak, he told her \u201ceverything that you would want to hear as a conservative right-wing woman,\u201d talking about the importance of family and praising her work. \u201cYou\u2019re saving Western civilization,\u201d she remembers him saying.<\/p>\n

After lunch, they headed to Tate\u2019s compound. At a long table, Southern listened as the brothers laid out their proposal: they would fund a new right-wing media venture, with her and Robinson in charge, if she would use it to pump a cryptocurrency they were planning to launch. The idea, she recalls, was, \u201cbasically, we\u2019re going to create a European-nationalist outlet to fleece all these idiots for money.\u201d<\/p>\n

That evening, the Tates took Southern to a club, where they ordered bottle service. After a couple of shots of vodka, she recalls, she suddenly felt \u201clike my consciousness was collapsing.\u201d Tate carried her to his car, and when she came to they were on the bed at her hotel.<\/p>\n

Tate started kissing Southern and pulling off her clothes. She told me that she tried to push his hands away, but he wouldn\u2019t stop. Then he hooked his arm around her neck and started to squeeze. She remembers thinking, \u201cOh, shit, this guy actually is going to rape me.\u201d Southern was anti-abortion, and was terrified of getting pregnant. She began pleading with him: \u201cI know what you\u2019re gonna do here. Please just wear a condom. Please.\u201d<\/p>\n

Southern remembers fading in and out of consciousness as Tate raped her unprotected and choked her. Afterward, he sat on the edge of the bed and said, \u201cDon\u2019t tell the press I raped you.\u201d She remembers saying, \u201cMy whole brand is literally talking about how stupid bitches get themselves in situations like this. There\u2019s nothing I can say without destroying my career. So congratulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the car to the airport, Southern said, she discovered burst blood vessels around her eyes and marks on her neck. Back in Toronto, she was examined by a nurse who specialized in sexual assault. On an assessment form, the nurse recorded that Southern had been raped and strangled by a \u201cwell known male\u201d at a hotel in Romania and had suffered an intimate injury. She noted that Southern seemed to be experiencing \u201cpersonal\u00a0struggles with her belief system\u201d as a result.<\/p>\n

Southern told me that she tried to apply her political convictions to her experience, telling herself that she was at fault for drinking with a man she didn\u2019t know. A month later, she texted Tate. \u201cIt was really shitty what you did that night in Bucharest,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI\u2019m not going to tell anyone obviously because I was an absolute moron, but I hope you don\u2019t do that to anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat did I do?\u201d Tate replied. \u201cI expected tons better from you. This msg is some liberal #metoo bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou literally strangled me when I said I didn\u2019t want to have sex,\u201d Southern wrote. \u201cYou literally told me in the morning \u2018don\u2019t tell the press I raped you.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re absolutely embarrassing yourself,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Tate denied raping Southern, but he bragged to the War Room about spending the night with her, saying that he had invited her to Romania to discuss a business deal but \u201cdidn\u2019t invest a fucking penny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Southern came to wonder if his proposal had been just a pretext. She thought back to her confrontations with women protesting sexual violence and felt regret. But, she told me, \u201cI knew one hundred per cent there was no world in which I spoke about this where I got to retain my status within the right-wing world.\u201d For years, she remained silent.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Britain\u2019s Crown Prosecution Service informed Tate that he would face no charges from the allegations of rape and strangulation that had caused him to flee the U.K. The police had let the case lie dormant. At the time, conviction rates for reported rapes hovered at around two per cent.<\/p>\n

For Tate\u2019s accusers, the long wait had been excruciating. \u201cWe were just so sick of having him in our minds,\u201d Maya Navarro told me. \u201cIt\u2019s always there\u2014him, and us needing to go to court and get justice. Finding out that nothing was going to happen was very defeating.\u201d The women were not told why it had taken four years to decide not to act. But prosecutors did write to all three of them, setting out reasons why they<\/em> were apparently to blame for the collapse of the case.<\/p>\n

Police officers had searched Navarro\u2019s and Walker\u2019s phones for anything that might compromise their credibility; prosecutors noted text messages, sent in the months after leaving Tate\u2019s apartment, in which they talked about feeling \u201choe-ish\u201d and discussed \u201cdick sizes.\u201d Navarro was baffled. \u201cSorry, are we never allowed to talk about dicks ever again?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The letters also cited messages in which the women worried that police would find photographs of them surrounded by wine bottles, taken while they were working for the Tates. Navarro had reassured Walker in a voice note, \u201cWe can just turn around and say that, with the alcohol, they used to get us drunk all the time.\u201d Prosecutors appeared to view this as evidence of bad faith. They did not quote the rest of Navarro\u2019s message: \u201cI needed to be drunk to actually be there\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. \u2019cause I couldn\u2019t take it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Hannah Price\u2019s case, prosecutors made no mention of the messages in which Tate had declared, \u201cI love raping you.\u201d Because she had slept with Tate again after the initial incident, they concluded that she had no case.<\/p>\n

Finally, prosecutors noted that several women had gone to the police to support Tate\u2019s story. One of them had produced a T-shirt reading \u201cTate is my daddy and I am his whore,\u201d which she claimed belonged to Walker. Navarro told me that the T-shirt was actually Hruskova\u2019s. \u201cShe\u2019s just blatantly lying,\u201d she said. Still, Navarro comforted herself that the investigation had served as a warning to Tate. \u201cI genuinely thought, O.K., maybe this has scared him to not ever do this to somebody else,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n

In fact, the C.P.S. decision had the opposite effect. \u201cThe strong conquer the weak,\u201d Tate texted War Room members. \u201cThis is the way of the universe.\u201d He started tweeting incessantly about sexual violence. \u201cOnly time you can beat her up without going to jail is during sex,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI have big hands because I was bred for violence. Like an attack dog. Do you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate went on to start Hustlers University, making tens of millions of dollars a year in subscription fees. He launched a podcast, \u201cTate Speech,\u201d and an online show, \u201cTate Confidential.\u201d He appeared on dozens of other manosphere and far-right shows. Suddenly, his face and his voice were everywhere.<\/p>\n

Then Tate started openly taunting his accusers. In one interview, he addressed Walker. \u201cI kept you for the money,\u201d he said. \u201cYou weren\u2019t all that, but you made me enough. You put the leather in the Ferrari, bitch. And now you\u2019re sitting there broke as a joke. I\u2019m still free.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women watched in horror. \u201cSeeing him all the time, having him come back into my life unconsensually,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cThat really pushed me to the edge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tates\u2019 most prized project was the War Room. Andrew billed it as \u201cthe most powerful network of men in the world,\u201d but mainly it was a series of group chats in which members learned how to make money by exploiting women. New entrants were inducted into the main group, the Great Hall, by an account called the Master of Scrolls and Decorum. They were sent a list of required reading, known as the Survival Scrolls, which included Ken Ivy\u2019s \u201cPimpology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tate\u2019s Pimping Hoes Degree course was the core of the curriculum. \u201cSome women are more susceptible to being molded,\u201d Tate told pupils. To gauge a woman\u2019s malleability, members were taught to dismiss her harshly after sex and then demand an act of service\u2014buying coffee or chocolate, cooking a meal. If she complied, she was through to the next level.<\/p>\n

Once students had found a susceptible target, they were encouraged to move up to the webcam and OnlyFans courses, where they learned methods that the Tates had honed over the years. Tate filmed the OnlyFans course from a leather chair in his compound\u2019s cigar lounge. Beside him sat Hruskova, whom he introduced as \u201cmy not-so-beautiful assistant.\u201d She perched on her chair in a black turtleneck and a pleated skirt, blank-faced and fidgeting slightly as he denigrated women. \u201cGirls are fantastically lazy,\u201d he said. \u201cGirls have something wrong with them in their brains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate was assisted in his teachings by Tristan and several other associates, whom he called the War Room Generals. Chief among them was a California-based hypnotist named Miles Sonkin, who went by the alias Iggy Semmelweis. Sonkin billed himself as an expert in neurolinguistic programming and cultivated a mystical affect, with a ponderous gray beard; in promotional videos, he appeared in a fedora and a cape, shooting rings of animated fire from his hands. His main role was to advise on how to hypnotize women into \u201csexual slavery\u201d\u2014often by uttering incantations during sex, a process he called \u201cinstalling spells.\u201d Through his teachings, he said, members could keep women \u201csoul-locked.\u201d (Sonkin did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n

Tate leaned into Sonkin\u2019s pseudoscientific lexicon. He spoke about getting women to \u201cself hypnotise\u201d by demanding that they write him pledges of devotion, and shared screenshots of some that he\u2019d received. One woman begged for the \u201chonor of being your slave to serve you and worship you like you deserve\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. like a king, like a god.\u201d He told War Room members, \u201cThis is the level of locked I enjoy. Anything else is boring.\u201d (The chat logs were obtained by an independent journalist named Nick Monroe, who shared them with me.)<\/p>\n

War Room members from around the world met at \u201csummits\u201d to compare notes. In Los Angeles, attendees were promised an evening of tutorials, including \u201cInstalling Spells & Sexual Magic,\u201d accompanied by \u201cthe best grass-fed Steaks grilled to perfection on an outdoor grill, fine aged whiskey, smoking Cuban and Empalador cigars.\u201d Another summit was arranged in a turreted castle in the mountains of Transylvania.<\/p>\n

The Pizzagate conspiracist Mike Cernovich was a member, as was the far-right lobbyist Jacob Wohl, who bragged about supplying women to U.S. politicians, claiming that \u201cthese men will always want to win your good graces in hopes that you might toss them a girl or two.\u201d Wohl was later convicted of running a voter-suppression scheme targeting Black neighborhoods during the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

The Tates shared \u201creceipts\u201d of the women they\u2019d cultivated, often including intimate photographs. Over time, their recruitment efforts became more brazen. They began reaching out to high schoolers, and hosted parties for teen-age girls at their compound. Andrew shared a video of one such event with the War Room. \u201c16 year old hoes are all over the house,\u201d he wrote, adding, \u201cMore girls = more money.\u201d In a journal called \u201cThe Players Year,\u201d Tristan documented scores of conquests, several of whom he said were teen-agers and virgins. One was wearing a school uniform. He wrote about another, \u201cInexperienced as she was, it caused her a lot of discomfort.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Among the most vivid tutorials offered to the War Room was a play-by-play account of how Andrew Tate recruited Iasmina Pencov, the former psychology student. They had met in her home town of Timi\u0219oara, and Tate spent weeks love-bombing her over WhatsApp. When she arrived at the compound, though, he wasn\u2019t there. Instead, he had deputized a blond woman named Beatrice Anghel to greet her. Anghel was a former producer for Romanian TV who had switched to online sex work after falling in love with Tate. He had texted her an assessment of Pencov: \u201cShe\u2019s very dumb.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. But will be good on camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more John Early Is Ready to Go There<\/a><\/p>\n

The Tates were now keeping many of their workers in American Village, the development beside their compound. Pencov was instructed to take her bags to Villa 67, where she would live with Anghel. Tate showed War Room members screenshots of his texts with both women, explaining that he had told Anghel that he loved her, and that Pencov was \u201cjust for cam\u201d\u2014while telling Pencov the same thing about Anghel. \u201cThey\u2019re both spying on each other,\u201d he wrote, with a crying-laughing emoji. \u201cAnd when I\u2019m home I\u2019ll just fuck them both and make them work.\u201d (Both women declined to speak with me, but they disputed this account through their attorney.)<\/p>\n

In the next few weeks, Tate reported that Pencov had \u201clost her support networks at home\u201d and was \u201ctalking about staying forever.\u201d But, when he insisted that she start making pornography, she was less pliable than he had hoped. He turned to a trusted strategy: inventing a reason to get angry so that he could \u201ctighten the screw.\u201d Tate accused Pencov of having worked in a sex club back in Timi\u0219oara. \u201cI literally totally made this up from the sky,\u201d he told the War Room. \u201cStarted calling her a liar and threatening to kick her out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pencov was horrified by the accusation. \u201cI\u2019m freaking crying alone in a room,\u201d she texted him. \u201cI\u2019ve left everything and everyone behind.\u201d He replied, \u201cYou are never going back to Timisoara even to visit,\u201d adding, \u201cWe are together. Always.\u201d In the War Room, Miles Sonkin urged members to \u201clook CLOSELY<\/em> at what Tate has done here,\u201d noting that he was \u201ctaking SOLE AUTHORITY<\/em> over her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Pencov texted Tate that her Christian faith prohibited her from making porn, he wrote to the group, \u201cThis is about the maximum difficulty that you experience in the business.\u201d If she didn\u2019t crack within a few days, he said, he\u2019d kick her out. Then Tate surveyed the chessboard. He knew that Pencov was running out of cash. \u201cShe\u2019s broke,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAnd she can\u2019t leave the house.\u201d This gave her \u201cno negotiating room,\u201d he reasoned. \u201cIf there\u2019s no goodbye, there is only comply.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The next move was for Tate to distance himself from the notion of webcam work. He texted Pencov that he didn\u2019t want her to think that he\u2019d moved her to Bucharest to make porn for him. \u201cI don\u2019t need girls to work for me. I have plenty of my own money,\u201d he said. She wrote back, \u201cThis literally made me cry.\u201d Then he noted that there was a way she could make money of her own: a Romanian woman named Georgiana Naghel was running an OnlyFans operation. \u201cHer business. Not mine,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In fact, Naghel had been working for the Tates for several years. A former hostess at cage-fighting galas, she was tall, with an air of sleek severity; Tate thought that she resembled Cruella de Vil, and called her his \u201cvery own full time witch.\u201d He wrote to her, about Pencov, \u201cGet her on only fans. I want money from her.\u201d Then he told Naghel to send him messages about how much money could be made from porn, which he passed on to Pencov.<\/p>\n

Pencov wrote back, \u201cI don\u2019t know what to say. I\u2019ve never done anything like this before.\u201d Tate noted to the War Room that this was \u201ca very soft rejection.\u201d Then he went in for a \u201chard close,\u201d telling Pencov that webcam work was the only job that he would allow her to do. \u201cA normal job puts men all around you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are sure you want me to do this?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to believe you\u2019re serious about us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re either together always working as a team or we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the War Room followed along in delight. \u201cIt\u2019s all a beautiful, beautiful game of chess,\u201d one wrote. Sonkin identified the mind games Tate was using: \u201c7 different Reframes in play. And a shit ton of presuppositions.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. At least 2 undermines and a bunch of Skewers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pencov texted Tate once more before capitulating. \u201cI don\u2019t ever sit around and feel sorry for myself nor let people mistreated me,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI\u2019m a badass with a good heart, soft but strong.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. But only with people that deserve to see this part of me.\u201d Forwarding this to the War Room, Tate wrote, \u201cWomen talk so much bullshit it\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naghel reported that Pencov started posing for OnlyFans within four days of vowing that she would never make porn. Next, Tate demanded that she have a threesome with him and Anghel, and she agreed. Anghel texted a friend that Pencov had told her beforehand that she was afraid, and that during sex Tate had hit her, spat in her face, and called her a whore. But Tate also told Pencov privately that she was his \u201cwife forever\u201d and that he loved her. \u201cIt\u2019s so hard to believe,\u201d she wrote back. \u201cI have never been loved this much before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within a couple years of launching the War Room, Tate reported that at least a hundred and forty students were making money from pornography. \u201cEveryone in here is banking 10\/15k extra a month,\u201d he wrote. Members shared screenshots of women they had recruited. \u201cFucking CASH WATERFALLS<\/em>,\u201d one wrote. Another, who called himself A God Amongst Men, talked about scouring college campuses across San Diego for women to \u201csmash\u201d and then recruit. He was hoping to \u201cget to millionaire status this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One star pupil was a Texan man who said that he was making six figures while his girlfriend streamed for thirteen-hour stretches. He posted a photograph of her bent over a stool in a grimy workspace, next to a table set with what appeared to be lubricant, wipes, and sex toys. \u201cGot her on Chaturbate, and sleeping in the concrete floored garage with no A\/C, spiders, and roaches,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAbsolutely legendary work,\u201d Tristan responded.<\/p>\n

The most zealous pimp was a meaty, shaven-headed Romanian named Vlad Obuzic, who ran a webcam studio in Bucharest. Obuzic was starstruck by Tate, who he said was \u201cway above my level.\u201d He enthused that \u201cusing his mindset helped me ALOT<\/em> at \u2018exploiting\u2019 females.\u201d Previously, Obuzic said, he had been careful not to \u201cmix love with business,\u201d but, since Tate had taught him that a woman is \u201cloyal only to the dick that\u2019s curently fucking her,\u201d he had started having sex with his top worker. In his estimation, the arrangement was going well. \u201cShe\u2019s always crying because of me witch is a good thing,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI have control 95% over her mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

When another member asked Obuzic how he subdued recruits, he gave a recent example. \u201cI took her keyboard and hit her in the head with it. She went in the room and worked 7 hours without any break,\u201d he said, later adding that he had beaten every woman he had been with. Some users were perturbed by Obuzic\u2019s stories. \u201cThat just sounds like abuse to me,\u201d one wrote. But the Tates elevated Obuzic; he got his own channel, the Revenge Room, where he taught \u201craw, uncensored methods of pimping and handling women.\u201d As his status grew, he dispensed lessons on handling local law enforcement. \u201cI had multiple charges for beating people up, hitting them with bricks in the head etc and I just paid 500-1000$ and nothing happened,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you position yourself right, corruption suits you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the compound, the influence of the Tates\u2019 father lingered. Andrew\u2019s former \u201charem\u201d member said, \u201cHis dad told him that he needed to procreate as much as possible and spread their genes.\u201d Women became pregnant, and Andrew has said that both he and Tristan have \u201cdouble-digit\u201d children. \u201cI\u2019m the big gorilla,\u201d he said. \u201cI take the fertile females and I impregnate them.\u201d Mothers were moved to their own apartments, where they kept working on camera. The brothers sometimes visited, and Andrew has described meting out harsh discipline. \u201cMy kids obey me like fucking soldiers,\u201d he said. On his orders, his five-year-old son would sit for hours in silence: \u201cDoesn\u2019t fucking move, doesn\u2019t say a fucking word, because he\u2019s scared for his fucking life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Elsewhere in American Village, discipline was often administered by two Romanian women. Tate had assigned Georgiana Naghel to \u201ckeep the farm animals on task,\u201d and a former police officer named Luana Radu was brought in to work alongside her. The two were a ferocious team. They issued instructions through a WhatsApp group called Suspicious Death, and punished workers who failed to comply. Women could be fined for failing to work their required hours, or for committing various offenses on camera, including crying or wiping their noses.<\/p>\n

According to women who worked in the house, Iasmina Pencov racked up thousands of dollars in fines, effectively keeping her indentured. One day, Tate wrote her an accusatory note about her productivity, calling her a \u201ccunt.\u201d She replied that she had been \u201ctired and sick,\u201d with \u201ctoo many thoughts\u201d to fall asleep. She wrote to Naghel that she blamed herself for disappointing Tate: \u201cI\u2019m scared of a lot of stuff and I\u2019m going crazy.\u201d Another morning, when Pencov failed to meet her target, Naghel texted her while en route to the villa. \u201cPunch yourself in the mouth till I get there, then I\u2019ll give you 10 more, you hopeless lazy bitch,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI HAVE A BAD FEELING THAT INSTEAD OF BREAST SURGERY YOU WILL GO TO THE MORGUE<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

At times, Radu and Naghel made good on their threats. When one woman, whom I\u2019ll call Lorina Dobre, announced that she wanted to leave soon after the brothers funded her breast enlargement, Tristan instructed the enforcers to keep all her money and belongings to recoup their investment. \u201cHit her if you have to, I don\u2019t care,\u201d he texted, according to sealed court files. \u201cThrow her out of the house with nothing.\u201d The women were eager to oblige. \u201cI want my money back or I\u2019ll cut her tits off,\u201d Naghel vowed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dobre later told police that the enforcers arrived at the villa and dragged her outside in her underwear, yanking her arm so hard that it wrenched a scar from her breast-enlargement surgery. \u201cGeorgiana wanted to kill her,\u201d Radu wrote to Tristan. \u201cI kept saying \u2018beat her without leaving any marks, please.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you girls,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

Dobre said that she waited outside for an hour, until another woman darted out to bring some clothes and her cellphone. Then she went to the police\u2014but so did Radu, the former officer. Afterward, Radu reported that the police had said that they knew the Tates and didn\u2019t want any trouble. (Naghel and Radu deny engaging in any criminal conduct, violence, or threats.)<\/p>\n

The Tates were delighted by their enforcers. \u201cThere\u2019s none of this \u2018female\u2019 team bullshit,\u201d Tate tweeted about Naghel. \u201cShe obeys the boss.\u201d For her birthday, the brothers threw a party at the compound. They presented her with a cake glazed in black icing, with the words \u201cQueen of Hell\u201d written in red letters. She cut it with a samurai sword.<\/p>\n

In April, 2022, there was a new arrival at the compound: the young musician from Miami. The newcomer, whom I\u2019ll call Ella Hadley, had met Tristan in Florida the previous November. She found him dashing and cultured\u2014they talked about books, music, poetry, and art\u2014and she felt that they were connecting deeply.<\/p>\n

In WhatsApp messages to her mother, she wrote that she had made an \u201camazing friend\u201d and sent a photo of Tristan in a crisp white shirt. He owned \u201cbeautiful homes\u201d in Romania, Monaco, and Miami, and was building a mountain residence near Dracula\u2019s castle. Her mother sounded skeptical. \u201cHe\u2019s v good looking,\u201d she wrote. \u201cSure he\u2019s got girls pining all around.\u201d But Hadley insisted that he was a \u201ctrue gentleman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like other women the Tates cultivated, Hadley had a difficult past. She had been sexually abused as a teen-ager, and a former boyfriend had recently died by suicide. In Tristan\u2019s room at the Mandarin Oriental, she confided in him about her ex-boyfriend\u2019s death. He said that he\u2019d once lost someone he cared about, too\u2014a girlfriend had died in a car accident\u2014and they discussed the strange contours of grief. \u201cYou\u2019ve made me feel things I haven\u2019t felt in a long time,\u201d she texted him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As their courtship progressed, Hadley texted Tristan, \u201cPart of me wants to do anything you ask.\u201d He replied, \u201cI love how submissive you are.\u201d One night, he invited her to a bar where members of the War Room were gathered, and she played piano for them. He told her that she dazzled him. Back at his hotel, they had sex, and he choked her till she lost consciousness. \u201cI remember when you passed out,\u201d he texted her afterward.<\/p>\n

Hadley told her mother that Tristan wanted to bring her to Romania and take her to visit waterfalls and cultural festivals. \u201cAwesome plans! Makes me dream,\u201d her mother replied. \u201cBut keep your feet well anchored.\u201d Tristan texted Hadley that she\u2019d live in a big house, close to his own. She would teach him piano, and he would help launch her music career. After paying for her flights, he laid out some ground rules. The first was that he would not tolerate body hair. But the most important was that she must never talk to anybody in Romania unless he introduced her. \u201cRomania is my world,\u201d he wrote. \u201cNo friends from outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hadley landed in Bucharest, Tristan picked her up in a blue Rolls-Royce. On the drive to the compound, she recalled, he made a joke about kidnapping her, and she was unnerved. When he took her into his bedroom, she later told police, \u201cI simply froze and had sex with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadley soon learned that Tristan was having sex with several of his workers. \u201cI did not cry, nor did I complain,\u201d she said. \u201cI was scared.\u201d He urged her to start posting for him on OnlyFans, but she resisted. \u201cI can\u2019t show my body,\u201d she texted him. \u201cI want to teach you music and find a job nearby.\u201d Still, after three days, Tristan moved Hadley into Villa 67 with the other recruits, who she thought looked unhappy and malnourished. Later, she said, she heard Naghel threatening to beat them if they broke the rules.<\/p>\n

Hadley noticed another newcomer at the villa: a young Moldovan woman whom I\u2019ll call Liana Vintilla. She seemed constantly upset, and Hadley decided to talk to her. At a party at the compound, she found a moment to draw her aside.<\/p>\n

Hadley learned that Vintilla had been working as a restaurant hostess in London when Andrew connected with her on Instagram and began bombarding her with flattery. When she found videos online of him talking about pimping, he assured her that it was just \u201cshow business.\u201d But, when she moved to American Village, he insisted that she post on OnlyFans. After several weeks of coercion and confinement, she succumbed. \u201cYour wife goes live today,\u201d she texted him.<\/p>\n

Vintilla said that she was alarmed by life at the villa, where her housemates had \u201cnightmares, spasms in their sleep.\u201d She told Hadley that she wanted to run away, but Tate had forbidden her to leave. She was terrified of him. He had told her by text that he had mafia connections who might try to find her, and that he had the same blood chemistry as a serial killer. A few days earlier, after she wrote him that she was miserable, he had summoned her to his bedroom. There, Vintilla said, he punched her in the face and raped her, squeezing her head painfully between his hands. She said he threatened to get her pregnant and then lock her in a house\u2014so that she would \u201cdefinitely go crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That night, Hadley texted her mother, \u201cTristan and his brother are terrible people.\u201d She said that she was making a plan to leave, along with \u201ca girl who\u2019s been stuck here.\u201d Her mother replied, \u201cI told you. Now try to get out of there quietly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadley booked seats on a flight to London, departing in two days. She texted Vintilla that they would have to be careful with the brothers, to \u201cmake them believe we are in love\u201d so that they would \u201cnot suspect us of leaving.\u201d Vintilla agreed to \u201cplay it cool.\u201d They imagined that one day they would look back on the experience and write a movie. Vintilla wrote, \u201cWe need a fucking Oscar.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the women prepared to flee, Hadley texted a family friend who was a marine. She said that the Tates were keeping her in a house with other women who acted as \u201cgroomers and handlers.\u201d Her friend, who had learned to spot signs of trafficking during his military training, concluded that her life was in danger. He called his superior officer, who urged him to report the situation to the U.S. Embassy.<\/p>\n

When Hadley learned what he had done, she panicked. \u201cThis is super scary,\u201d she texted him. \u201cThey will kill us.\u201d As\u00a0the raid team approached, she ran upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom\u2014which is where they found her when they broke down the door.<\/p>\n

Mateea Petrescu was at her grandfather\u2019s funeral outside Bucharest when her phone began buzzing with news: the Tate brothers had been accused of forming an organized-crime group to traffic women, and were being held in jail. Petrescu was a P.R. consultant in her late thirties who vaped continually, dressed in couture, and swore with creative flair. She knew all about the Tates; her cousin Eugen Vidineac was their local lawyer, and he\u2019d been asking her for advice. Petrescu looked over at Vidineac, who was weeping as the casket was lowered into the ground. \u201cOrthodox Romanian funerals are in a league of their own,\u201d she told me. \u201cThey try to squeeze the last ounce of pain and suffering out of you.\u201d Vidineac seemed too distraught to deal with the news, so she told him that she\u2019d handle it.<\/p>\n

In Bucharest, Petrescu joined the Tates\u2019 team as the spokeswoman. She was thrilled. Many of her clients were nationalist Romanian politicians; the Tates were global celebrities. \u201cIt was the case of the moment,\u201d she told me, and everyone she knew was \u201cin awe.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of her first tasks was responding to a report that the Taliban were concerned about Andrew Tate\u2019s well-being. The brothers had been trying to secure residency in Dubai, and Andrew had announced that he\u2019d converted to Islam. When the Taliban seized control of Kabul, barring women from work and girls from school, he had tweeted approvingly, \u201cDinner will be ready on<\/em> TIME<\/em>. The Taliban restores order. Inshallah.\u201d Now the group was apparently calling for his freedom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Petrescu\u2019s initial counsel was \u201cWe don\u2019t want to associate with the Taliban,\u201d but, she conceded, \u201cwe don\u2019t really want to upset the Taliban, either.\u201d Privately, she thought, \u201cWow, this is my life now. I don\u2019t want to upset the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Petrescu, that kind of cognitive dissonance was part of the thrill of the job. She loved being the only woman on Tate\u2019s crisis team and prided herself on being paid more than the men. While Tate was in jail, he had no access to the internet, but his \u201cTate Speech\u201d newsletter and his posts on X kept appearing. Petrescu told me that she had written many of those words. She got a peculiar \u201camusement\u201d from ventriloquizing the world\u2019s most notorious misogynist, she said. But she was also impressed by Tate. \u201cI\u2019m absolutely fascinated by the balls he has, to say the things he says and not have an ounce of a sense of ridiculousness or guilt,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n

The weeks after Tate\u2019s detention were chaotic, Petrescu said. She could hardly keep track of the lawyers and advisers clamoring for a role in the case. \u201cEverybody saw the goose with golden eggs,\u201d she told me. She had expected someone as famous as Tate to have a well-structured operation, but what she encountered seemed to run on \u201ca long chain of impulses and the deep belief that there is some sort of godlike inspiration that cannot go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tates had a deputy managing their affairs while they were in prison: their cousin Luke Leilas, who had moved from the U.S. to work for them. On Andrew\u2019s instructions, Leilas had been directing impassioned videos in which Hruskova, Pencov, and Anghel denied all the charges. \u201cDon\u2019t let them get lazy and wake up in the morning and look like shit,\u201d Tate told Leilas. \u201cNo one cares what ugly girls say, they have to look amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anghel gave an interview to Antena\u00a0TV\u2014the company where she had been a producer before Tate made her abandon her career\u2014insisting that she was not a victim. Asked why she had Tate\u2019s name tattooed on her arm, she said, \u201cOut of respect.\u201d Hruskova appeared in her own video, flawlessly made up in a fur-collared coat. \u201cImagine how outraged and mad would you be if this happened to your son or your brother,\u201d she said in English. \u201cThis is just a massive, massive violation against human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate was pleased. \u201cKeep going!\u201d he told Leilas, adding, \u201cWe need the girls to cry.\u201d But their communications created a vulnerability: prosecutors had access to transcripts of the prison calls. Tate\u2019s lawyers were dismayed when they found out. \u201cI explicitly said to him that EVERYTHING IS RECORDED<\/em>,\u201d one complained in a chat. \u201cI told him not once, but 5 times and still.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the lawyers successfully petitioned the court to release the Tates, on the condition that they stay in Romania and check in periodically with the police. When Andrew got out of jail, he announced, \u201cI believe in God, and I think that the fire of truth will eventually destroy all lies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Romania has long been regarded as the European capital of human trafficking, and official corruption plays a significant role in the trade. But the prosecutor leading the case against the Tates, Rare\u0219 Stan, had an unsullied reputation. He was known as a pugnacious investigator who had dismantled some of the country\u2019s most violent gangs.<\/p>\n

As the brothers\u2019 assets were seized, Ferraris, McLarens, and Lamborghinis were towed through their compound\u2019s gates. Inside, investigators discovered guns, knives, and stacks of cash. They also seized phones and computers, containing a vast trove of digital evidence that Stan\u2019s team used to track down dozens of the brothers\u2019 recruits.<\/p>\n

When the police interviewed Hadley, she urged them to help the other women who still supported the Tates. \u201cThese girls are not themselves,\u201d she said. In Romania, victims in criminal cases can be eligible for damages running to hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Hadley didn\u2019t want the money. \u201cThe only things she wants are peace and quiet,\u201d investigators noted.<\/p>\n

Vintilla gave a similar statement, and the two women agreed to co\u00f6perate with the authorities. They handed over their phones, underwent psychological evaluations, and provided sworn testimony. Afterward, prosecutors arranged for them to be transported to a safe house in the South of France. Hadley posted a picture of herself wearing white linen by the sea.<\/p>\n

In June, 2023, Stan filed an indictment of more than three hundred pages, detailing evidence that the Tates, Naghel, and Radu had trafficked the women housed in Villa 67. (The indictment was sealed, but I obtained a copy, along with an extensive cache of prosecutorial records.) The same month, prosecutors raided thirteen properties linked to Vlad Obuzic, Tate\u2019s disciple. He was arrested on suspicion of trafficking. Obuzic denied the charges, and is currently awaiting trial.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Stan was building a wider case, involving at least thirty-five suspected victims\u2014some of whom were minors. He established that Hruskova had been underage when Tate first compelled her to make pornography. He also pursued a case involving a girl I\u2019ll call Irina Pavel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When Pavel was fifteen, she told investigators, she had accompanied a school friend to a party hosted by the Tates, which was full of young girls. Her friend paired off with Tristan, leaving her with Andrew, who was so drunk that he spat as he talked. He pulled her into a bedroom and raped her, she said. Afterward, some of Tate\u2019s \u201cfemale friends\u201d persuaded the girls to stick around for several days, and Tate kept having sex with Pavel. \u201cWe had normal, oral, and anal sexual relations, but I mention that the anal sexual acts were traumatic for me because I was in pain,\u201d she told investigators. \u201cEven though I asked Andrew to stop, he continued.\u201d<\/p>\n

The girls eventually had to go back to school, but, Pavel said, the Tates sent a taxi every few weeks to bring them to the compound. Tate was \u201coften aggressive,\u201d beating her with a belt and choking her\u2014but he also bought her Teddy bears. Finally, he discovered that she had been chatting with a boy online and became furious, throwing her phone into the pool and kicking her out.<\/p>\n

After Tate\u2019s arrest, Pavel said, he took her to dinner at a restaurant called Arogant and tried to make amends. He told her that he hoped she would be \u201ca good girl\u201d and say nothing to the authorities, offering to pay her five thousand euros, with half up front. He also bought her a dummy phone to give to investigators, rather than her own. Pavel took the phone and the money\u2014but ultimately decided to tell investigators that Tate had raped her. She wrote in a text, \u201cYou take her so young, you fool her and make her your slave? Fuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ella Hadley spent a while recuperating in France, then decided to keep travelling. Eventually, she made it to Sydney. She was fearful of the Tates\u2019 connections, and often disguised her appearance, but she liked spending her days outside, hiking and shopping at an open-air market.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after the brothers\u2019 arrests made the news, Hadley got a text from a former boyfriend in Florida, Marlin Fisher. He wanted to know if the man who had taken her to Romania was Andrew Tate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cHis brother,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly shit! I\u2019m sorry,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI survived,\u201d she wrote, \u201cand there are other women who are now able to hopefully receive justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadley had dated Fisher when she was seventeen and he was in his thirties. She had initially lied about her age, and the relationship had ended acrimoniously. Now his apparent sympathy didn\u2019t last. A month after his first note, he sent a more alarming one. \u201cI\u2019ve been asked to provide anything I still have from when we dated,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWhat I have from that time is a backup of my phone documenting everything you said about a ton of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The people asking for Fisher\u2019s phone were allies of the Tates. In the previous month, the brothers\u2019 team had devised a strategy to push for Hadley\u2019s \u201cfull surrender.\u201d Their lawyers had threatened to sue her family for three hundred million dollars if she did not recant her testimony. When that had no effect, they sent private investigators to hunt for information to discredit her. Some were former F.B.I. agents, others fellow-influencers\u2014including a British man named Sulaiman Ahmed, who had volunteered to travel to Florida.<\/p>\n

Petrescu told me that she was dismayed by the decision to send Ahmed. \u201cHe was dumb as a rock,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything was done with a big sledgehammer.\u201d He turned up at Hadley\u2019s family home and tried to talk to her parents, then found his way to Fisher. (Ahmed disputes this account.)<\/p>\n

When Tate\u2019s team learned that Fisher had alerted Hadley to the visit, they were furious, calling him a \u201closer\u201d and a \u201chighly volatile asset.\u201d Now they had to contend with Hadley\u2019s lawyer, who wrote to Fisher, urging him not to participate in a \u201cconspiracy to silence\u201d her client, and pointing out that he had slept with Hadley when she was a minor. He turned over the phone data anyway.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, private detectives probed Hadley\u2019s vulnerabilities as a witness. They discovered that, when she was fifteen, she had been repeatedly raped by her fifty-seven-year-old yoga teacher, who was later jailed for molesting her and another child. In her late teens, she had become entangled in a series of fraught relationships with older men, several times lying about her age and inventing fanciful stories about her life as she sought their affection. All of it went into the dossier.<\/p>\n

Tate\u2019s most bellicose advocate was Joseph McBride, a lawyer who\u2019d made his name defending several January 6th rioters. McBride was a star in MAGA<\/em> circles, dining at Mar-a-Lago and befriending Donald Trump, Jr. He filed a defamation lawsuit against Hadley in Palm Beach County, describing her as a serial liar and \u201ca predator who has a long history of baiting men into sexual relationships for the specific purpose of destroying their lives.\u201d Another one of the Tates\u2019 lawyers filed a claim on Fisher\u2019s behalf, accusing Hadley of entrapping him. Pencov and Anghel filed their own claims against her, through the same lawyer. The Tates also sued Hadley\u2019s parents and the family friend who\u2019d initiated the raid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As the case progressed, McBride reached for a startling variety of arguments to discredit Hadley\u2019s claims about the Tates. He accused her of playing \u201con age-old stereotypes\u201d about \u201cmen of African American descent,\u201d saying that such allegations \u201cmay have been effective weapons in courts of segregation, but they have no place in today\u2019s world.\u201d He maintained that Hadley must have known that Tristan liked \u201crough sex,\u201d and said complaining that he had choked her was \u201clike getting into the boxing ring with Mike Tyson\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. and being surprised when you get punched.\u201d<\/p>\n

To publicize the case, McBride appeared on \u201cFresh and Fit,\u201d a popular podcast in the manosphere. He called Hadley \u201cpure evil\u201d and said that she had used sex to \u201clure men in\u201d for ten years\u2014that is, since she was twelve. \u201cOne guy is serving a sentence he should not be serving in jail,\u201d he claimed. \u201cAnother guy arguably killed himself due to his interactions with her.\u201d If the case went to trial, he said, \u201cI will rip her to shreds\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. body bag, for sure.\u201d Or, he said, she could rescind her testimony, \u201cand the whole thing just stops.\u201d (McBride denies engaging in witness intimidation.)<\/p>\n

McBride published Hadley\u2019s name, birth date, and passport number, along with her parents\u2019 address. Then Ahmed shared a distraught voice note that she had sent to Fisher years before, after her ex-boyfriend died by suicide. The post was headed \u201cUnveiling The Woman Who Targeted Unsuspecting Men.\u201d Candace Owens devoted an episode of her show to unpacking the claims about Hadley. McBride arranged for Tucker Carlson to fly to Romania for a fawning interview with Tate, which drew a hundred and twelve million views. McBride later said in a private chat that it had taken him \u201c2 years of relentless work to shift the J6 narrative,\u201d but that he was already \u201c75% there on completely shifting American thought on Tate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the next few months, posts attacking Hadley went viral on social media, and her accounts were deluged with threats\u2014\u201cI\u2019m getting a hitman,\u201d \u201cYou deserve to die.\u201d The Tates\u2019 advisers warned them not to publicly take part in the smears. Instead, they proposed a \u201cpussy\u201d strategy: letting the affiliate network \u201chave fun with the subject\u201d while the brothers maintained a plausible distance.<\/p>\n

Hadley was forced into hiding. In a court filing, she wrote, \u201cThe abuse I witnessed and experienced while in Romania was traumatizing. But the harassment and threats I have received in retaliation for cooperating with law enforcement have been even worse.\u201d She added, \u201cI am constantly fearful, sad, and alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Tates\u2019 webcam business dismantled and the travel ban holding them in Romania, they were struggling to fund their life style and pay their legal bills. They could never admit it\u2014their brand was built on flexing their wealth\u2014but, Andrew confided to advisers, \u201cNobody seems to understand we dont have money.\u201d Without the brothers travelling to create videos and promote themselves, subscriptions to their online school were declining. \u201cContent is stale,\u201d their cousin Luke Leilas said. \u201cWe need Andrew and Tristan free.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2024, as the U.S. election approached, Tate pinned his hopes on Donald Trump. Barron Trump had been tasked with reaching a young male audience, and Tate intended to help him deliver. Justin Waller, a close associate who has called himself the Tates\u2019 \u201cthird brother,\u201d agreed to be the intermediary.<\/p>\n

In April, Waller secured an invitation to Mar-a-Lago and began courting Barron. He offered dating advice and introduced him to a tailor, who made the suit that Barron wore to his father\u2019s second Inauguration. During the fitting, Waller later said, Barron spoke with Tate over Zoom.<\/p>\n

That summer, after the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Tate said that he had spoken to Barron again. \u201cI\u2019m very close with the Trump family,\u201d he said. He and Donald Trump, Jr., also appeared on a live stream to promote a MAGA<\/em> meme coin. \u201cYou\u2019ve got people attacking you, as far as I\u2019m concerned,\u201d Trump, Jr., said.<\/p>\n

Tate spent the day of the election live-streaming, ordering his followers to vote. \u201cAmerica is over if Trump loses,\u201d he tweeted. When the results came in, Petrescu said, the Tates were overjoyed: \u201cOh, the celebration! Trump is now President. We\u2019re going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterward, J.\u00a0D. Vance followed the brothers on X. Then Donald Trump selected one of their lawyers, Paul Ingrassia, to serve as the White House liaison to the Department of Justice. Ingrassia, a twenty-nine-year-old associate at the McBride Law Firm, had worked on the case against Hadley. He had previously tweeted that Tate was \u201cthe embodiment of the ancient ideal of excellence,\u201d which was why he had been targeted by \u201cthe satanic elite that attempt to systematically program and oppress all men.\u201d The President\u2019s counsellor Alina Habba appeared on a podcast with Tate, telling him that she was a \u201cbig fan\u201d and declaring, \u201cI\u2019ve got your back.\u201d She said, \u201cI think you go through a lot of the same \u2018Show me the person, I\u2019ll find the crime\u2019 that President Trump has gone through.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few weeks after the election, the brothers received more good news: their Romanian indictment had been sent back to prosecutors. The Bucharest Court of Appeal had identified several procedural errors that needed fixing, which meant that the case would be seriously delayed.<\/p>\n

The travel ban was still in place. But Rare\u0219 Stan had been replaced by a less experienced lead prosecutor, Cezar Profira, whom the Tates and their Romanian lawyers apparently considered a softer touch. (Profira did not respond to requests for comment.) The brothers told me that Profira had joked with them about Hadley during an interview, saying, \u201cYou should have bought her a handbag.\u201d In private messages, their advisers talked about needing Profira \u201con our side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three weeks after Trump\u2019s victory, Romania held its own Presidential election, and again the Tates played an unusual part. The brothers had been backing a right-wing candidate named C\u0103lin Georgescu, who was a virtual unknown until he won the first round of voting. Georgescu was stridently pro-Russia, and the Kremlin celebrated his victory\u2014but Romania\u2019s Constitutional Court annulled the result, citing evidence of interference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The ensuing controversy gave U.S. officials a pretext for taking an interest in Romania\u2019s internal affairs. J.\u00a0D. Vance, Elon Musk, and other right-wing figures suggested that liberal \u00e9lites had stolen the election. Trump\u2019s special Presidential envoy Richard Grenell accused Romania of joining a global conspiracy to silence \u201cpeople and politicians who weren\u2019t woke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petrescu told me that the team had been lobbying Grenell to help the Tates, and that he was willing. \u201cRic was rooting for the boys,\u201d she said. Soon after the cancelled election, Grenell met at Mar-a-Lago with a Romanian politician named Victor Ponta, who later told the Times that they had discussed the Tates\u2019 case. (Ponta told me that he no longer remembered this and had no involvement with the Tates. Grenell denied aiding the Tates or speaking about their case with Ponta, though he has publicly affirmed, \u201cI support the Tate brothers.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Then, Petrescu told me, the Tates\u2019 team devised a P.R. gambit. The Munich Security Conference was approaching. If Grenell could discuss the case with the Romanian foreign minister, Emil Hurezeanu, they would make sure that a reporter was positioned to overhear the conversation. When Grenell met the minister, Petrescu recalled, \u201cRic only asked, \u2018Hey, how are the Tate boys?\u2019 That\u2019s all they needed. It went into a media frenzy immediately. \u2018The Americans are pressuring for the release of the Tate brothers!\u2019<\/em> \u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Vance went onstage at the conference and denounced Romania for annulling Georgescu\u2019s victory. He argued that there were \u201centrenched interests, hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like \u2018misinformation\u2019 and \u2018disinformation,\u2019 who simply don\u2019t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurezeanu, the foreign minister, told me that the government \u201ctook this criticism by Vance very seriously,\u201d not least because Romania borders Ukraine and relies on the U.S. for its defense. He said that, when he saw Grenell at the conference, he raised the Tates\u2019 case pre\u00ebmptively. It seemed clear to him that Trump\u2019s people were backing the Tates, because of the \u201celectoral support\u201d that they\u2019d provided in 2024; now the brothers seemed to be \u201cplaying a role within the bilateral relations\u201d of the two countries. (The White House denies this.)<\/p>\n

After the conference, Petrescu said, prosecutors reached out to the team and asked, \u201cO.K, what do the Americans want?\u201d The answer was that the brothers must be cleared to travel. \u201cLiterally the next morning the restrictions were lifted,\u201d Petrescu said. A senior Romanian law-enforcement source told me that the decision appeared to have been imposed from \u201coutside the judicial system,\u201d adding, \u201cIt is not normal for individuals accused of child trafficking to be able to travel freely.\u201d The longtime Trump ally Roger Stone tweeted, \u201cRichard Grenell secured the release of the Tates,\u201d then hastily deleted the post.<\/p>\n

A source who was present when the Tates learned that they were free to travel told me that the message was delivered by a senior Romanian politician\u2014one who had recently been to Mar-a-Lago. The politician turned up at their compound at night in a black S.U.V. \u201cThe Americans are asking questions now,\u201d he told them. \u201cHere\u2019s your passports back. Happy flying.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On February 27, 2025, the Tates flew from Romania to Florida. Thousands of fans tracked their private jet as it crossed the Atlantic. When it landed in Fort Lauderdale, a crowd of journalists and onlookers was gathered outside the executive terminal to watch the brothers arrive. \u201cThey were expecting this grand tour\u2014the martyr comes home, a free-speech hero,\u201d Petrescu told me. There was a hitch, though: border officials seized the Tates\u2019 phones. They were working on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, which had quietly opened an investigation into the brothers under the Biden Administration.<\/p>\n

Tate made a furious appearance on Candace Owens\u2019s show. \u201cYou think I sleep with a phone full of evidence?\u201d he said. \u201cYou think I don\u2019t wipe my phone every night? You think I\u2019m dumb? Come get me.\u201d Petrescu told me, \u201cI had never seen him so unhinged.\u201d She felt grimly vindicated, having advised the brothers against flying to Florida, where Hadley and her family lived. It seemed to Petrescu like blatant witness intimidation. Only a couple weeks earlier, Hadley\u2019s pro-bono lawyer had filed a counterclaim against the brothers for human trafficking, coercion, defamation, and harassment, alleging that they were attempting to silence her.<\/p>\n

Tate embarked on what amounted to a publicity tour of right-wing America. He and Tristan were photographed puffing cigars with Roger Stone, whom Andrew hailed as the \u201clawfare OG.\u201d In Las Vegas, they were greeted ringside by Dana White, the president of the U.F.C., who hugged them and declared, \u201cWelcome to the States, boys!,\u201d before greeting other guests, including Grenell and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director. In Los Angeles, Tate met with Kanye West. He tweeted at California\u2019s governor, \u201cI\u2019m in LA. Please begin criminal charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, he headed to the Beverly Hills Hotel to spend the night with a model named Brianna Stern. He had met Stern a year earlier, when she came to Romania for photo shoots to promote his meme coin, $Daddy. Tate\u2019s seduction followed his familiar pattern: he said that he loved her and called her a whore, demanded that she have his baby and told her, \u201cI want to beat the fuck out of you.\u201d At the hotel, Stern alleges, Tate choked her and battered her head and face, telling her repeatedly that he would kill her if she ever crossed him.<\/p>\n

Afterward, she went to a doctor, who diagnosed post-concussion syndrome. Stern waited for Tate to leave the country, then told the Beverly Hills police that he had assaulted her. She also filed a civil suit, attaching her medical report and a series of texts in which he\u2019d threatened to beat her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When Petrescu learned of Stern\u2019s allegation, her reaction was \u201cYou gotta be fucking kidding me.\u201d She said to colleagues, \u201cWe all have kinks. But can he please, please, please have some vanilla sex for six months?\u201d Petrescu told me she was predisposed to accept Tate\u2019s explanation that Stern was an opportunist looking for money. But the texts attached to the lawsuit made for grim reading. \u201cThere\u2019s stuff I know about the Tates, from reading a lot of the depositions, declarations, text messages, that one doesn\u2019t really want to know about their client, \u201d she said. As a P.R. person, she added, \u201cyou don\u2019t question\u2014you can\u2019t.\u201d But she began to worry that she was normalizing Tate\u2019s behavior: \u201cI started wondering, Is that seeping into my subconscious? Am I becoming that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tates were in constant motion in the following months, posting from pricey hotels in the Bahamas, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Hong Kong. Still, Andrew seemed bored. \u201cI miss human trafficking,\u201d he tweeted. \u201cThe emotions ran high. Been chasing dopamine ever since.\u201d His online rants were becoming increasingly extreme. He responded to the release of the Epstein files by posting that \u201cwomen have become such lying whores that it\u2019s impossible to take any of these unsubstantiated claims seriously.\u201d Despite his mixed heritage, he promoted the great-replacement theory, declaring, \u201cThe west is collapsing because it\u2019s full of disgusting traitors. White people who beg to be erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the American courts, Tate was enjoying a run of good fortune. The L.A. district attorney announced in June that he would not be prosecuted for his alleged assault on Stern, citing insufficient evidence. McBride claimed that he\u2019d given the D.A. a \u201cdo-not-prosecute packet\u201d demolishing the case; he promptly filed a fifty-million-dollar defamation suit against Stern. In Florida, Judge\u00a0G. Joseph Curley dismissed most of Hadley\u2019s counterclaim, including the allegations that the brothers had harassed her and attempted to coerce her into sex work; he, too, cited a lack of evidence. \u201cThank God for U.S. justice,\u201d Tate tweeted.<\/p>\n

There was a threat from the U.K., though. British police had been investigating the origins of the Tates\u2019 webcam business, and had charged them with a combined twenty-one counts of rape and trafficking. But a Romanian judge ruled that the brothers could not be extradited until the local proceedings were complete\u2014and, two years after Cezar Profira took over, the trafficking case seemed to be going nowhere. Prosecutors hadn\u2019t even fixed the procedural errors in the initial indictment. In chats with advisers, Tristan acknowledged that he and Andrew were effectively being \u201cprotected by Romania.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Romania has recently been rocked by a judicial-corruption scandal: a documentary called \u201cCaptured Justice\u201d revealed that judges were being pressured to dismiss or delay politically sensitive cases. More than nine hundred judges and prosecutors have since signed an open letter warning of systemic abuses, and protesters have marched through Bucharest, demanding reform. One of the country\u2019s most senior prosecutors called Romania a \u201cparadise for criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

This April, the Tates were released from all bail conditions relating to the Romanian indictment. The brothers were jubilant. \u201cCase never made it past trial. Innocent,\u201d Tate wrote to advisers. \u201cYeah we spin it as this. If we can,\u201d Tristan replied. \u201cThen when we\u2019re reindicted they look stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their lawyer responded with three sweating-laughing emojis. \u201cNoooo,\u201d he wrote. \u201cRemember, we need cezar on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCezars a piece of shit I hope he dies,\u201d Tristan wrote. \u201cMe being nice to him has done me no favours.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, Tate addressed the British government in a video posted from a harborside balcony in Hong Kong. \u201cCome extradite me if you have such a strong case,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know you have nothing. Everyone else has tried. Everyone else has failed.\u201d He added, \u201cI am the main character of Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the political landscape that Tate helped create, women hold an increasingly precarious position. These days, the far-right podcaster Nick Fuentes will openly say that women should be kept in \u201cbreeding gulags,\u201d and the ultra-popular Joe Rogan will host a just-asking-questions discussion about whether the feminist revolution was a huge mistake. Influential Christian leaders are calling to repeal women\u2019s suffrage. A man was elected President after being held liable for sexual assault.<\/p>\n

Even in this milieu, Tate\u2019s violent rhetoric stands out. \u201cI saw a woman crossing the road today but I just kept my foot down,\u201d he posted after Trump\u2019s re\u00eblection. \u201cRight of way? You no longer have rights.\u201d His influence is being felt around the world. Last year, a seventeen-year-old boy in New Jersey allegedly drove his car into two teen-age girls, killing them both, after joking on a live stream about women getting raped by Tate. In Britain, a man who had recently watched about ten of Tate\u2019s videos raped his ex-girlfriend and murdered her, her mother, and her sister using a crossbow. British police have warned that Tate\u2019s teachings are radicalizing young men in a \u201cterrifying\u201d manner and declared that violence against women is a national emergency. Reports of rapes and sexual assaults in British schools\u2014some involving victims as young as five\u2014have soared in the past five years, and education leaders describe violent misogyny spreading on an \u201cepidemic scale.\u201d Similar concerns have been reported across North America and Asia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Yet Tate could have faced justice more than a decade ago, when Navarro, Walker, and Price accused him of assault, if British police had taken their allegations seriously. \u201cThey failed to protect the initial victims and created this problem,\u201d the senior Romanian law-enforcement source told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In my reporting, I discovered something that the British police had hidden for years: their officers bungled the investigation from the start, making it almost impossible to bring Tate to trial. When Price first came forward, officers neglected to take a statement and discouraged her from pressing charges, telling her that it would be a long and difficult process. They also failed to make a digital recording of Walker\u2019s initial statement, instead jotting her words down on paper so sloppily that Tate was at one point referred to as \u201cMichael.\u201d This introduced discrepancies that undermined an account she later gave on video. Multiple items of evidence were also stored incorrectly\u2014including Tate\u2019s phone, which was left lying around the station while the case stalled.<\/p>\n

When the phone was eventually searched, it apparently contained important evidence\u2014Tate later said that officers had found proof of twelve \u201cbad things I did\u201d\u2014but the chain-of-custody lapse made it practically useless. Prosecutors, hoping to salvage the case, gave police a list of leads, but they failed to act on them. A longtime Hertfordshire detective blamed the malfeasance on \u201coverworked, overstretched\u201d officers who failed to take the women\u2019s allegations seriously, partly because two of them were sex workers. \u201cIt was one of many cases that were completely cocked up because of poor policing,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

This spring, after I reached out to current and former officers about the investigation, the Independent Office for Police Conduct suddenly announced that it had launched an inquiry into gross misconduct in the case. The next day, the Hertfordshire police declared that they were reopening their own investigation, more than a decade after the women first came forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tristan panicked. \u201cNew charging decision = new warrant,\u201d he wrote to his advisers. \u201cMeans we\u2019re not protected by romania at all and he can be picked up at anytime from anyplace.\u201d In a voice note, he added, \u201cWe\u2019re just gonna have to fucking stay in Dubai and the United States and stop traveling and fucking get some extradition lawyers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro, Walker, and Price were already pursuing a civil claim for damages. After the brothers were arrested in Romania, the journalists Jamie Tahsin and Matt Shea reported on the women\u2019s stories for Vice News, and another woman said that she, too, had been strangled and raped by Tate in 2014. The four women launched a crowdfunding campaign to \u201cBring Andrew Tate to Justice in the U.K.\u201d and filed a claim against him in Britain\u2019s High Court.<\/p>\n

The Tates were dismissive of the civil case. Andrew wrote to his advisers, \u201cNobody cares besides 50 retards,\u201d adding, \u201cI\u2019m too important to give them relevance.\u201d But when Tate checked on the crowdfunding campaign, this spring, he was shocked to find that it had raised more than three hundred thousand pounds. \u201cGo get him,\u201d one woman wrote under a ten-pound pledge. Another, donating five pounds, wrote, \u201cYour bravery is astounding. We are all with you.\u201d Looking at the total, Tate wrote, \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of money.\u201d Then he snapped back into character: \u201cI don\u2019t acknowledge my cases.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. I ignore all this none of it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon afterward, Petrescu quietly resigned. \u201cI am not leaving because he is a misogynist. I am leaving because the tragedy has become too cringe to watch,\u201d she wrote, in a proposal for a book that she plans to write about working for the brothers. \u201cThey lie like there\u2019s no tomorrow,\u201d she told me. \u201cI stopped believing in Andrew.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the British civil case goes to trial, one of the witnesses will be Lauren Southern, the former far-right activist, who has since disavowed many of her past views. She told me that she\u2019d decided to get involved after watching Tate\u2019s other victims fight for justice. \u201cThe idea that I had evidence, I had medical records that could be added to these cases, and I was doing nothing\u2014that was really eating me up inside,\u201d she said. Last year, she self-published a memoir that detailed her experience with Tate. She broke into tears as she told me that speaking out was \u201cthe only way to actually heal anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate has always relied on Hruskova to support his story. Since the brothers\u2019 webcam operation was dismantled, she has been living in Dubai, where she has trained as a gemologist, specializing in lab-grown diamonds. She declined to speak to me, and has remained publicly loyal to Tate, but there are signs that her perspective may be shifting.<\/p>\n

Hruskova recently launched a Telegram channel, Viviens Wonderland, which she describes as a \u201csafe space\u201d for women to discuss topics including recovering from traumatic relationships, sexual assaults, and leaving the sex industry. I joined the channel via a public link this January. Inside, Hruskova presided over chats with sisterly energy, dispensing reassurance, pep talks, and relationship tips.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She bristled when members asked about her past. \u201cIf any of you mention Andrew or remarks regarding him or our past relationship youll get kicked out,\u201d she once declared. But at times her guard slipped. When one member asked her how it had felt to be in a relationship with someone who slept with other women, she replied, \u201cHorrible, do not recommend it to ANYONE<\/em>,\u201d and added, \u201cNo woman can stomach it for long period of time.\u201d She wrote that Tate was the only man she had ever been with, and that since leaving him she had committed to celibacy. It had taken seven sessions of tattoo removal to erase his branding from her skin.<\/p>\n

When a group member wrote about missing an ex-partner who had abused her, Hruskova\u2019s response was fiery. \u201cwhat exactly is it you miss?\u201d she wrote. \u201cHow you felt literally worthless? How youd cry with him every day? And then knowing how TERRIBLE<\/em> you felt and he made you feel, add this\u2014he KNEW<\/em> what it would cause you and still did it. Thats not love, never was.\u201d<\/p>\n

One afternoon in Bucharest, Tristan met me at a surf-and-turf restaurant overlooking a lake. He wore a wide-lapelled burgundy suit and purple alligator winklepickers, made by King Charles\u2019s shoemaker. At the table, he took off a gold Rolex and invited me to feel its weight. He ordered grilled octopus, followed by two steaks.<\/p>\n

Tristan told me that he was determined to clear his name. \u201cI\u2019m Tristan Tate, the human trafficker\u2014that\u2019s what everyone says about me. Everyone thinks I\u2019m a horrible person. Everyone thinks I commit crimes against women. Before my daughters grow up, I need to prove that I\u2019m not that guy,\u201d he said. \u201cMy life has been destroyed, and this should not be my story.\u201d He denied using calculated seduction to recruit women, but acknowledged that he\u2019d had sex with many of his workers. \u201cI\u2019ve got beautiful, naked women in my house,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat do you think is going to happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole webcam business was a distant memory, he insisted. \u201cI learned a lot about the nature of men, how perverted and weird they are,\u201d he said. \u201cIt made me like men a lot less. It certainly made me hate pornography and understand that it\u2019s a toxic influence.\u201d When I asked about his own proclivity for choking women, he scoffed. \u201c\u00a0\u2018Fifty Shades of Grey\u2019 is the most popular female book ever,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea that this book sold hundreds of millions of copies, and that there aren\u2019t women who will ask a tall millionaire who likes to wear suits to choke them during sex like it\u2019s my idea, is a wild leap of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

After lunch, Tristan beckoned for the bill and refused to let me pay\u2014\u201cI\u2019m a misogynist. You\u2019re not allowed.\u201d Outside, a bodyguard led me to a waiting Aston Martin, and Tristan nosed the car out onto the street. As he sped across town, he told me that he retained high-placed connections in Romania who were \u201cvery apologetic\u201d about the case. We pulled up outside a Davidoff cigar emporium. Inside, Tristan breezed past the front desk, calling out, \u201cA big one for me, a small one for her,\u201d before leading me into an elevator. When the doors closed, he quipped, \u201cNow you can\u2019t leave.\u201d A few floors up, they opened to reveal a low-lit lounge with heavy green curtains and black leather armchairs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Over cigars, Tristan brought up Ella Hadley, the young woman from Florida. \u201cShe has drastically altered the course of my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI should be known as a sportsman, a clean-living, industrious, hardworking businessman.\u201d When he thought of Hadley, he said, his mind was \u201cclouded by the fog of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wanted me to interview Hadley, as well as her pro-bono lawyer. \u201cI hope you get in touch with these retards,\u201d he said. \u201cI super-duper-duper hope they talk to you, because I will use your article to get more money out of their asses in court.\u201d He also urged me to include a \u201ctribute\u201d to Hadley\u2019s ex-boyfriend who died by suicide. (Hadley, who has never spoken to the media, declined to be interviewed.)<\/p>\n

The elevator door opened, and Andrew Tate walked in. \u201cThe bad guy, the bogeyman,\u201d he said, grinning, as he shook my hand. He was dressed casually, in a green su\u00e8de jacket and black sweats, but his watch was heavily iced with diamonds, as was a chain around his neck. \u201cKill the music,\u201d he told Tristan. \u201cI\u2019m low on time, so let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tate started by telling me that his reputation as a misogynist was \u201ccompletely unfair.\u201d He explained, \u201cWhat I am is a realist who has certain world views on how men should act, which is with honor and duty, and they shouldn\u2019t be hurting women in any way. Of course, on the internet, you use hyperbole, and you exaggerate sometimes for comedic effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told me that the case against him had been cooked up by his political foes. \u201cWhat they\u2019re trying to do is to attach heinous allegations to my name so that people talk about the allegations instead of my ideas,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Western world\u2019s on the edge of collapse, and they\u2019re very afraid of that.\u201d Both brothers dismissed the War Room messages as \u201cunmoderated chats,\u201d and claimed that the thousands of incriminating texts filed in court had all been mistranslated from English to Romanian.<\/p>\n

When I asked how the travel ban had come to be lifted, Tate denied that Donald Trump had personally intervened, but said he had learned from powerful people in Bucharest that the restrictions were removed because of American pressure. \u201cRomania just overthrew its election. Too many people are looking at our processes,\u201d he said he had been told. \u201cIt\u2019s too messy. They want you gone.\u201d Now he was certain that the case would fail. \u201cThe chance of this getting to trial is zero,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tate deflected most of my questions with well-worn arguments, but when I asked about Hruskova he seemed caught off guard. \u201cIf I\u2019d ever hurt her, why has she released all those videos defending me?\u201d he said. Soon, he announced that he needed to leave. He bumped into my photographer on the way out, but refused to stick around for pictures. \u201cI didn\u2019t like some of her questions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With his big brother gone, Tristan settled into an armchair under a gold spotlight and posed for photos with apparent contentment. \u201cSupermodel, huh?\u201d he said, puffing on his cigar. Then he was struck by a thought. \u201cYou know who ruined the \u2018I don\u2019t need to rape women because I\u2019m handsome\u2019 excuse?\u201d he asked. \u201cTed Bundy.\u201d He went on, \u201cTed Bundy ruined it for fucking everyone, because he was a psychopath and he killed a bunch of women and he was handsome and charming. If it wasn\u2019t for him, that would still be a plausible reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When the photo shoot was over, Tristan headed for the elevator. Then he suddenly turned back. \u201cCome on, give me a hug,\u201d he said, striding toward me. In the moment before his arms encircled me, there seemed to be no choice.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more For the Nation\u2019s Birthday, Making It Harder to Become an American<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heidi Blake reports on how the defining figure of the manosphere built a fortune\u2014and became a political force\u2014by systematically exploiting women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-reporter-at-large"],"yoast_head":"\nAndrew Tate\u2019s Empire of Abuse - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=407\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Andrew Tate\u2019s Empire of Abuse - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Heidi Blake reports on how the defining figure of the manosphere built a fortune\u2014and became a political force\u2014by systematically exploiting women.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=407\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-08T10:39:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"102 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"headline\":\"Andrew Tate\u2019s Empire of Abuse\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-08T10:39:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407\"},\"wordCount\":20451,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/68bb30c70ea327383d347271fae078d5.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"A Reporter at Large\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=407\",\"name\":\"Andrew Tate\u2019s Empire of Abuse - 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