U.K. seeks extradition after influencer Tate brothers arrested in U.S.

Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by federal authorities on Saturday in Miami, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The charges against the pair were not immediately announced. Brady McCarron, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service, said the warrant was sealed.

British prosecutors announced late Saturday they were seeking the extradition of the brothers on rape and sex-trafficking charges. The offences are alleged to have occurred between July 2010 and August 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.

The brothers, proponents of hypermasculinity who have millions of followers on social media, have been wanted in the United Kingdom, where they face rape and human-trafficking charges.

The Tates are dual U.S. and British citizens who moved to Romania in 2016. They were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations, and the case didn’t go forward because of legal and procedural irregularities.

The pending charges in the U.K. accuse the brothers of abusing women between 2012 and 2015 in an area north of London, where they grew up. Their lawyers had said they denied the allegations.

Joseph McBride, a lawyer representing the Tate brothers, said in a phone interview on Saturday evening that he has not been able to speak with his clients but called the new charges out of the U.K. “filth and slander” intended to derail defamation lawsuits filed by the brothers in the U.S.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to make sure these guys never get their day in court,” McBride said.

“We are confident that once a competent judge sees the facts, and once the Department of Justice confronts this egregious abuse of its own authority, Andrew and Tristan Tate will walk free. America does not do Britain’s political dirty work.”

Andrew Tate, 39, first reached a mainstream audience as a contestant on the U.K. reality television show Big Brother in 2016. He was removed from the show when a video surfaced that appeared to show Tate assaulting a woman. He and his brother Tristan, 38, are vocal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Andrew Tate has amassed more than 10 million followers on social media platform X but has been banned from platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram for violating hate speech guidelines. His most widely condemned rhetoric includes comments that women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for their attacks, graphic descriptions of how he might attack women and criticisms of people who seek treatment for mental illness.

The Tate brothers have consistently denied allegations of abuse and human trafficking, claiming that violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.