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Prosecutors of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organised Crime and Terrorism - Central Structure have ordered the indictment of brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, both placed under house arrest.
According to DIICOT, in the indictment of 15 June, prosecutors of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism - Central Structure ordered the indictment of four defendants, two persons with dual British and American citizenship and two Romanian citizens, under house arrest for the offences of setting up an organized criminal group, trafficking in persons in a continuous form (each defendant has been detained as follows: four material acts, three material acts, six material acts and five material acts, respectively, in relation to the number of injured persons), rape in continuous form (two material acts), illegal access to a computer system, altering the integrity of computer data, instigation to assault or other violence and assault or other violence.
Judicial sources told Mediafax that it concerns brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate and Georgiana Manuela Naghel and Alexandra-Luana Radu, accomplices of the Tate brothers.
Prosecutors have retained in the indictment that at the beginning of 2021, the four defendants formed an organized criminal group with a view to committing the crime of human trafficking on the territory of Romania, but also of other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
"The victims were recruited by foreign nationals by misleading them as to the intention of establishing a marriage/cohabitation relationship and the existence of real feelings of love (loverboy method). They were then transported and sheltered in buildings in Ilfov county where, through acts of physical violence and psychological coercion (through intimidation, constant surveillance, control and the allegation of alleged debts), they were sexually exploited by members of the group by forcing them to engage in pornographic acts with a view to producing and disseminating such material via social media platforms. The 7 victims identified during the criminal proceedings were subjected to forced labour in order to obtain significant financial benefits consisting of money received as a result of accessing the material by users of the platforms," DIICOT said in a press release issued on Tuesday.
Of the seven victims who were sexually exploited by the organised criminal group, three have joined the criminal proceedings as civil parties.
With regard to the crime of rape, it was held that in March 2022, an injured person was forced by one of the defendants, through physical violence and psychological pressure, to repeatedly engage in sexual relations (two material acts).
