Pizza prove costly for influencer Andrew Tate as cops detain him after getting clues from pizza box
Bucharest: Andrew Tate, a divisive social media personality and former professional kickboxer, was detained in Romania late Thursday on charges of human trafficking and rape, according to local media reports.
Tate, a British-US citizen who previously was banned from various social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech, was reportedly detained along with his brother Tristan in the Ilfov area north of Romania's capital, Bucharest.
Romania's anti-organised crime agency said in a statement late that four suspects, including two British citizens and two Romanians, were arrested on charges of being part of an organised crime group, human trafficking and rape.
The agency, DIICOT, said the British citizens recruited women who were subjected to "acts of physical violence and mental coercion," sexually exploited by group members and forced to perform in pornography intended to reap "important financial benefits."
The statement did not name the Tate brothers. Photographs published by Romanian media outlets pictured Tate being led away in handcuffs by masked law enforcement officers.
DIICOT said it identified six people who were sexually exploited by the organised criminal group, and that five homes were raided on Thursday. The suspects were detained for 24 hours.
Earlier this week, Tate posted a video on Twitter of a mountainous region of Romania, the Eastern European country where he is reported to have lived for the last five years.
Tate also was embroiled this week in a war of words with 19-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg after he shared a picture of himself standing next to a Bugatti on Twitter and bragged that he owned 33 cars.
Video footage from the police raid accompanying the anti-organised crime agency's statement shows several blurred-out sports cars, wads of cash, and a handgun.
On Wednesday, the British national was told to “get a life” by Thunberg on Twitter after he told her he owned 33 cars with "enormous emissions."
It all began when Tate, a self-described misogynist, bragged about owning “33 cars” and said he is happy to share details about the “enormous emissions” of his cars. Tagging Greta Thunberg, he asked for her email address.
Thunberg, 19, clapped back with a savage reply that became hugely viral. “Yes, please do enlighten me,” she tweeted in response, adding a made-up email address to mock Tate. The fake address ends with “get a life”.
The interaction did not end there. Tate, in turn, shared his response in a video. The two-minute clip has him speaking, wearing a robe and holding a cigar. At one point, he is seen collecting two pizza boxes from someone and placing them on the table.
The boxes, from Jerry’s Pizza – which has outlets in Romania – are suspected to have helped the Romanian authorities track down Andrew Tate, according to several reports.
The Romanian pizza chain appearing in Andrew Tate’s response video to Greta Thunberg was reportedly used as proof for Romanian authorities to confirm his presence in the country, leading to the arrest of him and his brother in a human trafficking probe pic.twitter.com/MD0cved7q5
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I wasn't there during many mistakes of Congress, but happy to take responsibility: Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi, May 4 (PTI): Responding to a question on the 1984 riots and the Congress' relationship with the Sikh community, Rahul Gandhi has said a lot of the "mistakes" the party committed happened when he was not there but added that he was "more than happy" to take responsibility for everything wrong it did in its history.
Gandhi pointed out that he has publicly stated that what happened in the 80s was "wrong".
The remarks by Gandhi were made on April 21 during an interactive session at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University in the US. The video of the interaction was uploaded on the YouTube channel of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs on Saturday.
A Sikh student asked a question as to what attempts he was making to reconcile with the Sikh community and referred to the 1984 Sikh riots in his lengthy poser.
The student also referred to Gandhi's remark during an earlier visit to the US in which he had said the battle he was fighting was about whether Sikhs would be allowed to wear a turban in India or not.
In his reply, Gandhi said, "I don't think that anything scares the Sikhs. The statement I made was, do we want an India where people are uncomfortable to express their religion?"
"As far as the mistakes of the Congress party are concerned, a lot of those mistakes happened when I was not there, but I am more than happy to take responsibility for everything that the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history."
"I have publicly stated that what happened in the 80s was wrong, I have been to the Golden Temple multiple times, I have an extremely good relationship with the Sikh community in India and a loving relationship with them," the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
Tagging that segment of the interaction, BJP IT Department head Amit Malviya said on Saturday, "'You haven't reconciled with the Sikhs', a young man tells Rahul Gandhi to his face, reminding him of the unfounded fearmongering he engaged in during his last visit to the US."
"It is quite unprecedented that Rahul Gandhi is now being ridiculed not just in India, but around the world," Malviya said.
The BJP also attacked Gandhi for calling Lord Ram "a mythological figure" at the same interaction.
During the interaction, Gandhi had said, "All great political thinkers, social reformers and you go back 3,000 years -- Buddha, Guru Nanak, Basava in Karnataka, Narayana Guru in Kerala, Phule, Gandhi, Ambedkar, and you see one stream. None of these are bigots."
"None of these people were saying - 'we want to kill people, we want to isolate people, we want to crush people, we believe that things should be done in one particular way'. All these people, the voices of whom are in our Constitution, are essentially saying the same thing, that carry everybody along (and emphasising on) truth and nonviolence," he had said.
"This, to me, is the bedrock of Indian tradition and Indian history. I don't know one person whom we consider great in India who wasn't of this type," Gandhi had said.
He went on to add, "All our mythological figures, Lord Ram was of that kind, where he was forgiving, he was compassionate. So, I don't consider what the BJP says to be the Hindu idea at all. I consider the Hindu idea to be much more pluralistic, much more embracing, much more affectionate, much more tolerant and open."
There are many people in every state and community who stood for those ideas, lived for those ideas and died for those ideas, he had said at the interaction in the US.
"And Gandhiji is one of those people, probably the best in modern times but there are many of them. To me, hatred and anger against people come from fear. If you are not scared, you don't hate anybody," he said. Further, Gandhi also slammed the BJP and called it a "fringe group".
"I don't view the BJP conception as a Hindu conception. In terms of thinking, they are a fringe group, they are not mainstream. Now that they have captured political power, they have got a huge amount of wealth and they have got power, but they don't represent the large majority of Indian thinkers by any means," Gandhi had said.
Reacting to Gandhi's remarks, Malviya said on Sunday, "Bhagwan Ram is not a mythological figure, he embodies the values, culture, and spiritual essence of Bharat. He represents 'maryada', sacrifice, and righteous leadership, which have shaped our civilisation for thousands of years. He is the soul of Bharat and central to who we are as people."
"Rahul Gandhi and the Congress should stop ridiculing the beliefs of billions of Hindus around the world. People like him and political parties will come and go, but Bhagwan Ram will forever remain a timeless symbol of dharma and an inspiration for generations to come," Malviya said.
At the April 21 interaction, Gandhi also spoke about his demand for a caste census and asserted that he had got a massive "pushback" over the issue. A couple of days later, on April 30, the Centre announced that caste enumeration will be part of the next population census.
"When I push for the caste census, I get massive push back which says this is divisive... if we are talking about building a country, if we are talking about India becoming a powerful country and a rich country, we simply can not tell the bulk of the population that you cannot participate," he had said in the US.
"So to me, caste census is putting the truth on the table. Many people in India just don't want to hear the truth."
The people of India need to know exactly the amount of discrimination that is taking place, he had said.
"I don't believe that you should simply exclude the energy and the attention of the 90 per cent of your population. I don't understand how a country grows and prospers with that strategy," Gandhi had said.
He described caste census as a very powerful weapon, "the first step that will transform the way we think about development and the way we think about politics in India."
"If you look at the work that the Telangana government and Karnataka government are doing, particularly the caste census, those are revolutionary ideas. We feel that is a very very powerful instrument for empowering lower castes," he had said.
After the government's announcement on the matter last week, Rahul Gandhi told reporters that he welcomes the government's "sudden" decision to include caste enumeration in the next census after "11 years of opposing it" but said it should give a timeline for its implementation.
