Smoke and mirrors

Andrew Tate achieved global notoriety and, he claims, vast riches by peddling his businesses and his brand of violent misogyny to millions on social media. But is the former kickboxer’s life of fast cars and luxury a facade?

- Paul Kenyon

ANDREW TATE USED TO CRUISE ALONG THESE SCRUFFY SUBURBAN STREETS about 16km from the centre of Bucharest in Romania. Past a rubbish dump and a sprawling cemetery and a line of small houses that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the British TV soap Brookside. Rolling by in his Lamborghini or Bugatti or any other of his fleet of supercars. Puffing a cigar and adjusting his Michael Corleone sunglasses. Beating his tattooed chest at the red light.

Tate, who likes to call himself Top G (in street slang G stands for gangster), says he’s done nothing wrong. He might look and behave like a gangster. He might have boasted of gangsterish pursuits and claim to have made billions. But now, as a guest of the Romanian penal system, he says he’s not an actual gangster at all. He says he’s a good guy.

His arrest on 29 December by armed members of Romania’s anticorruption unit – the ones who arrest gangsters – was over allegations of people trafficking and rape. Officers wearing balaclavas stormed Tate’s compound by cover of night, and say they found guns, knives and large sums of cash. Top G and his younger brother, 34-year-old Tristan, were led away in handcuffs. Two Romanian women, Georgiana Naghel, and a former police officer called Alexandra Luana Radu, were also detained. The four are suspected of being part of a human trafficking group, although they say they are innocent.