London — A U.K. court ruled Wednesday that police can seize the equivalent of $3.3 million in frozen financial assets from Andrew Tate, misogynist social media influencer and his brother Tristan to cover years of unpaid taxes.
The money was held in seven bank accounts, frozen by British authorities, belonging to Tate, who previously lived in the United Kingdom, his brother Tristan and a woman identified by British authorities only as J.
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring of Westminster Magistrates’ Court said in his ruling on Wednesday that the transactions carried out by the brothers, including transfers amounting to almost $12 million to J, had been “plain cheating”. to evade tax authorities.
Lawyers for Devon and Cornwall Police had argued that Tate and his brother were serial tax evaders who paid no tax on around $26.5 million in income from their online activities.
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According to the French news agency AFP, lawyer Sarah Clarke, who represented the police, cited during the trial a video posted online by the Tate, in which he said: “When I lived in England, I refused to pay taxes.”
Tate denounced the decision, accusing the government of “pure theft.”
“This is not justice; it is a coordinated attack on anyone who dares to challenge the system,” he said in a statement, saying the seizure of his assets raised “serious questions about the efforts being made by the authorities to silence dissent.
The Associated Press cited a lawyer for the men, Martin Evans, who defended the bank transfers in question as “completely orthodox” for online business owners.
Tate gained millions of followers online before being banned by TikTok, Facebook and YouTube when the platforms accused him of posting misogynistic hate speech.
Tate and his brother are currently under house arrest in Romania, where they face criminal charges of human trafficking. Once this case is concluded, the brothers are expected to be extradited to the United Kingdom, where they face further allegations of human trafficking and rape.
The Tate brothers have denied all accusations of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
