The claim
- The Romanian police were able to track down Andrew Tate because of a response video to Greta Thunberg.
- Romanian police allegedly found Andrew Tate in a video because of a pizza box.
Our conclusion
- The video and the argument with Greta Thunberg are related in time, but are unlikely to have been the trigger for the police operation. This was already planned.
- The pizza box story is completely unconfirmed. It comes from a tweet and from media outlets that copied from each other.
It all started last Wednesday with a Twitter beef between Greta Thunberg and the previously largely unknown Andrew Tate. Tate, who is nevertheless known to a certain extent because he is an ex-professional kickboxer and has repeatedly drawn attention to himself on social media with very controversial and also misogynistic statements, is also linked to allegations of human trafficking, rape and education a criminal organization. He and his brother arrested in Romania. But there are stories about this that are difficult to maintain in many media.
According to Reuters news agency, both Andrew and his brother Tristan, as well as two Romanian suspects, were held for 24 hours. According to investigators, six women were identified in advance who were said to have been sexually exploited by the organized criminal group.
In cauză sa reținut că, la începutul anului 2021, 4 suspecți (doi cetățeni britanici și doi cetățeni români) au constituit un grup infrațional organizat în vederea comiterii pe teritoriul României, dar și al or state, precum SUA și Marea Britanie, a infracțiunii de personal traffic.
(In the case, it was established that at the beginning of 2021, 4 suspects (two British citizens and two Romanian citizens) formed a criminal group organized to commit the crime of human trafficking on the territory of Romania, but also other countries, such as the USA and Great Britain to commit.)
https://www.gandul.ro/actualitate/exclusiv-fosta-politista-ridicata-de-diicot-in-dosarul-de-trafic-de-persoane-deschis-pe-numele-fratilor-tristan-si-andrew- tate-femeia-ar-fi-lucrat-pentru-cei-doi-19899738
The video to Greta Thunberg
According to Romanian authorities, investigators were already waiting for the Tate brothers to return to Romania. We learn from Romanian sources that the anti-mafia prosecutors spent 9 months gathering evidence to substantiate the accusations against them.
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They probably also watched Tate's social media channels, but the clinch with Greta Thunberg wouldn't have been necessary because Tate made no secret of his whereabouts. Already on December 25, 2022, he published a video on Twitter with a clear indication of where he would be: Romania!
He also published a video on his Twitter account that shows him in his castle in Romania. So if the authorities wanted to get information about his whereabouts, then they didn't need the video response to Greta Thunberg at all.
And it is actually the case: it is in no way clear from the Romanian media reports that the video response to Greta Thunberg was the decisive moment. All we learn is that the authorities were waiting for the right moment to catch the Tate brothers, who had always been out of the country but were now within reach. It is also stated that the DIICOT prosecutors had of course also seen on social media that the crimes took place in Romania. The missions then took place.
Things get more bizarre when we look at the story of the pizza box. According to social media myths and various media reports, the police recognized that Andrew Tate was in Romania based on a visible pizza box in the response video to Greta Thunberg. The inscription and address on the box are said to have been whistleblowers.
This story, in turn, is not confirmed anywhere, at least from an official source. The starting point of this story is probably the journalist Alejandra Caraballo. Caraballo claims in a tweet ( archived version here ) that a pizza from a Romanian pizza chain (Jerry's Pizza) confirmed he was in the country.
This statement was adopted by many media outlets, but also by many people on social media. A story that you may want to hear as it makes you feel good, but is completely unconfirmed.
Pizza Box: Just a plausible story
Caraballo, however, faced a lot of backlash for this story, as several people noticed that the pizza box was never confirmed in this context. That's why she explained the thought process that led her to the pizza box again on Twitter. She writes in a thread:
I received quite a bit of criticism for my pizza box tweet. I would like to explain my thought process and acknowledge the legitimate criticism. I had no idea that this tweet would go so incredibly viral.
I read a report from Gandul, a local Romanian news agency. In particular, they reported that authorities were mobilized after social media posts that suggested the brothers were together were taken down. This is a little different from my post that said they were in the country.
After reading this, I decided to check Andrew Tate's social media. He was famously banned from most social media in August. However, he had an Instagram account to circumvent the ban, but the last post was on December 5th. No real recognizable place.
So I checked his Twitter account. As some have noted, he posted a video titled Romania. However, there is no indication that this is from that day and not a newly posted video. There is no indication of the date and time.
The next day, he tweeted a video with the words "Where to?" taken at an airport in Prague, Czech Republic. So it's unclear where he actually was, considering he flew from the Czech Republic.
Find local businesses, view maps and get directions in Google Maps.
There are a number of other posts, but none that give a clear location that would place him in his apartment with a confirmed time frame.
Many show him in front of palm trees, which is definitely not in Romania and suggests Dubai. This is confirmed by previous videos showing his villa in Dubai, which match his recent videos about the Matrix and the picture he posted trolling Greta with his Bugatti.The Bugatti is obviously not in Romania, but in his villa in Dubai. He can be seen in this video here with palm trees. This means that the picture he tweeted to Greta was definitely not in Romania. So that doesn't have its location either.
A final contribution was the castle. This is a piece of content posted months ago that is actually a hotel in Italy. Again, it shows that he reposts content and you can't be sure if he is actually where he says he is.
Revealed: Andrew Tate doesn't actually own a £132m castle, but a hotel in Italy
A castle built from a house of cards.As for Tristan, he doesn't often post photos or his whereabouts on Twitter, at least not in the last month. His most recent Instagram posts were in Dubai and at a tailor shop that I couldn't locate. So there is no current evidence that he is in Romania with Andrew.
So that brings us to the answer to the pizza video. The reason I chose this video is because it is the only posting with a confirmed time and location, which shows Andrew Tate in Romania at his home and could not be reposted.
I think it's fair for people to criticize me for jumping to conclusions. This has not been confirmed by Romanian officials, and I base my guess on a poorly Google-translated article from Romanian reporting. However, I did the work and checked his social contacts.
Do I think this was the key piece of evidence for the police? Not at all. However, I believe that this could have easily accommodated Andrew Tate in his home in Romania within a tight time frame. It could also be verified by calling the pizzeria.
Furthermore, it is almost certain that the Romanians knew he was in the country because he was at the border. The problem is knowing exactly where he is in the country. This was not made clear in my original post and I should have been clearer. My post could be dismissed as speculation, but I checked social media. There is nothing that Andrew Tate saw at a specific time and place in the last few days or weeks. We will know more in the coming days.
Using public information posted by suspects to plan arrests is a common law enforcement tactic. This is valuable information for any agency planning a major raid. I'm sure the officers saw the video and at least knew about it.
I should have shown my work first, but it was a lot and I was in a hurry to publish it. It's already taken me an hour to create this thread, while the initial search for me only took a few hours. Anyway, I'm trying to be more open and responsible in the future.
I am absolutely amazed at how much my post has gone viral and had no intention of misleading anyone. It is based on the evidence and reports I had at the time.
https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1608709173684105217
The story of “Greta against Tate-liath” may certainly seem very impressive, but on this scale it plays a minor role. Both are plausible, but simply unconfirmed. And both show how quickly one can copy the other and thereby manifest a story.
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