(FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla.) — Controversial influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate have landed in Florida, after Romanian officials announced that court restrictions prohibiting them from leaving Romania while awaiting trial were lifted.
The pair were traveling aboard a private jet after being allowed to leave Romania, according to a source close to the brothers.
Their spokesperson shared a live feed of the plane arriving in Fort Lauderdale late Thursday morning.
The Tates are accused of human trafficking and forming an organized criminal group with the goal of sexually exploiting women in two cases in Romania. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape. Separate allegations of money laundering are also under investigation. The Tates have denied the allegations.
Upon leaving the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, Andrew Tate said he believed he and his brother are “largely misunderstood.”
“We’ve yet to be convicted of any crime in our lives ever. We have no criminal record anywhere on the planet, ever,” Andrew Tate said.
He said their case in Romania was “dismissed” in December 2024 and, because they have no active indictment in court, the prosecutor “recently decided” to let them return to the U.S.
However, the charges against the Tates remain in force, and they will be expected to return to Romania for court appearances, according to a statement from Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, or DIICOT. The agency warned that failure to observe the remaining judicial restrictions could result in harsher restrictions being instated.
The brothers had been confined to Romania since late 2022 when they were arrested on allegations of human trafficking, sexual abuse, money laundering and forming an organized criminal group. They were charged in 2023. A second case began last year on similar charges involving more women.
In December 2024, a Bucharest court ruled that the first case against the Tates and their two female associates couldn’t proceed to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities and sent it back to prosecutors. The charges were not dropped. The second human trafficking case against the brothers in Romania is also still ongoing.
The Tates’ departure follows reports that Trump administration officials had lobbied Romania to lift a travel ban on them while they are awaiting trial.
President Donald Trump told reporters he wasn’t aware the brothers had left Romania for the U.S. when asked Thursday if his administration pressured the Romanian government to release them.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” he told reporters while in the Oval Office with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“We’ll check it out, we’ll let you know,” Trump added.
A lawyer for an American woman who is one of the key alleged victims in the Romanian criminal case against Andrew Tate condemned the Trump administration after he was allowed to leave Romania.
“It seems clear the U.S. intervened in Romania to assist the Tate brothers who are being prosecuted for sex trafficking over 35 women including minors,” Dani Pinter, senior vice president at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said in a statement. “This is a slap in the face to all the victims of the Tate brothers especially the U.S. victim who is not being protected by her country.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his office had no involvement in the case and found out through the media that the brothers were traveling to Florida.
“But the reality is, no, Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct in the air,” he said when asked by a reporter at an unrelated press conference on Thursday if Andrew Tate is welcome in Florida.
There is currently an arrest warrant against the Tates on allegations of sexual assault and human trafficking out of the United Kingdom. Last year, a Romanian court approved their extradition to the U.K. once their Romanian cases concluded.
A lawyer for four British women who have accused Andrew Tate of rape and coercing them have urged the U.K. government to intervene to ensure he is still prosecuted in Britain.
“Any suggestion that the Tates will now face justice in Romania is fanciful,” the lawyer, Matthew Jury, said in a statement. “The U.K. authorities must take immediate steps to secure their extradition to the U.K. to face charges for the offences of human trafficking and rape they are alleged to have committed in this jurisdiction. Romania has embarrassed itself. The U.K. must not do the same.”
The women in the U.K. case said in a joint statement that they are “in disbelief and feel re-traumatized by the news that Romanian authorities have given into pressure from the Trump administration to allow Andrew Tate to travel around Europe and to the U.S.”
Jury called on Starmer to raise the issue with Trump during their meeting in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
The prime minister also addressed the matter from the Oval Office.
“There’s an English element here, so obviously it’s important that justice is done,” he said. “Human trafficking is obviously, to my mind, a security risk, and so we’ll catch up with the story.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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