Leaked Texts Show Andrew Tate’s Alleged Trafficking Tactics
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
When far-right influencer Andrew Tate was arrested by Romanian authorities on suspicion of sex trafficking last December, the Romanian agency DIICOT argued that Tate and his brother Tristan used the “loverboy method” to lure women to their compound in Bucharest under the guise of having a relationship with them before forcing them to do sex work. Tate has maintained his innocence, arguing that he never at any point has had to coerce any of his partners into doing sex work for him and recently telling Tucker Carlson that he had “no financial motivation” to force women to make online content for him.
Newly leaked screen grabs of 2021 messages from the War Room, Tate’s all-male network of associates, however, are complicating Tate’s narrative. In the messages, which sources close to the War Room verified to Rolling Stone, Tate appears to be boasting about manipulating one of his girlfriends into doing sex work for him.
More from Rolling Stone
U.S. Virgin Islands Seeks $190 Million From JPMorgan Over Jeffrey Epstein Suit
Andrew Tate Is Suing Victims for Defamation. They're Not Staying Silent
Andrew Tate Compares Himself to Titanic Victims In Nauseating Tucker Carlson Interview
The woman, whose name Rolling Stone is withholding, is listed by Romanian prosecutors as an alleged victim of Tate’s sex trafficking operation, though she has repeatedly denied this. She did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Tate told Rolling Stone that the woman referred to in the “purported screenshots” “has publicly and categorically refuted any mistreatment from the brothers,” and that the release of the screenshots is part of a smear campaign against the Tates. “While all statements from the alleged victims, incriminating the brothers, have been unquestioningly accepted by the public, the evidence supporting the brothers’ innocence has not been given the same fair treatment,” the spokesperson said.
The messages paint a lurid and often disturbing image of the process by which Tate allegedly recruited young women to do his bidding using a combination of lies, manipulation, and coercive tactics, all the while using examples of his conversations as teaching methods for his acolytes and inviting feedback from them.
Tate and his brother Tristan, who also shows up in the leaked War Room chats, were arrested in Bucharest in December 2022 and detained on suspicion of sex trafficking, rape, and organized crime, and are currently on house arrest. The Tate brothers’ Bucharest compound was initially raided after an American woman and a Moldovan woman placed a call to a U.S. embassy saying they had been lured there under false pretenses and forced to create sexually explicit content online for the Tates’ financial benefit. The Tates have strongly denied these allegations.
As Rolling Stone previously reported, the Tate brothers are the head of the War Room, an exclusive social network and Telegram channel providing members with access to their teachings on sex and masculinity. Though Tate associates have classified it as little more than an innocuous self-help brotherhood, sources familiar with the War Room have claimed that it served as a forum for coercing women to do online sex work for members.
The screengrabs obtained by Rolling Stone appear to be from a channel titled War Room – PhD, a reference to Tate’s now-defunct “Pimpin’ Hoes Degree” program (“My job was to meet a girl… get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I’d say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together,” read a now-deleted description of the website for the PhD progra.)
In the messages, which are dated from June 2021, a user identified as “Tate” — Andrew’s handle on the Telegram chats with his War Room members, according to previously verified messages from the group — starts by expounding generally on the virtues he looks for in female partners. “Give me an average moron with no skills who’s blind loyal,” he writes. “I judge basically all females by loyalty. If they’re loyal. And they won’t leave. In the end they’ll do everything you want.”
Tate also posts screengrabs of Instagram photos of other women, referring to them as “target[s] and “assets” to get them to cam. “Ibiza asset has agreed to do [OnlyFans]. PhD writeup forthcoming,” he writes on June 17, 2021, texting a video of an unidentified young woman.
He later sends a photo of two women he purports to have “moved in together,” both of whom are currently listed by Romanian prosecutors as alleged victims of the Tates’ sex trafficking operation.
In the messages, Tate explained how one of the women, who moved from her native country to be with him and has “lost her support networks at home,” had been begging to see him. So in order to make her more dependent on him, he writes, he made up a story that he had spoken to friends of hers who had claimed she had worked at a sex club prior to meeting him, prompting him to become angry at her and threaten to kick her out. In the texts, Tate appears to explain how this lie succeeds in putting the woman on the defensive and making her more dependent on him.
“The real goal is for her to agree to never go anywhere without me. Not even her home town,” he writes. “I need her working.”
Tate then includes what appears to be a screengrab of a text conversation between him and the woman, in which he explicitly tells her, “You are never going back to [her hometown] even to visit” and “you don’t need to leave the house in Bucharest….We are together. Always.”
“Yes. I understand,” the woman replies.
According to the anti-human trafficking organization the Polaris Project, isolation is one of the tactics a trafficker uses to “distance their victims from anyone who might weaken their influence or contradict the messaging they’re providing.” “By isolating their victims, traffickers make it more difficult for them to reach out to others for help later on down the line,” the Polaris Project writes.
According to the leaked messages, however, War Room members appear to view isolation as key to getting women to do their bidding. “That isolation is critical,” one user writes.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Tates cast doubt on the source of the leaked messages, saying that some of the accounts that had shared them on social media came from newly created accounts.
“The rise of AI and social media as a news source has opened up the opportunity to anonymously present potentially fabricated, or manipulated evidence, while bypassing the burden of responsibility and avoiding consequences,” the spokesperson said. “These realities raise concerns about the potential for a deliberate and targeted effort to sway public opinion and undermine the credibility of the evidence presented.”
In later messages, Tate appears to recount in detail the process by which he recruited the woman to work for him by producing sexualized content online. In the thread, he includes a screengrab of what appears to be a text from her, in which she protests against sending him a sexy photo or camming and doing OnlyFans “because my body is intimate and only my husband should be able to touch and see.”
In his messages to War Room members, Tate appears to frame this clear lack of consent as both a challenge and a teaching experience for his acolytes. “This is about the maximum difficulty that you experience in the business,” he writes. “If we all agree on that, I’ll give you a play by play of what I try.” He then solicits feedback from other War Room members, asking them what they would do to convince their partner to do sex work for them — “I would try a good cop bad cop ruse,” writes one person. “Act deeply hurt by her refusal. Flip it on her and get her to start feeling guilty or cry” — before Tate says he’ll be “making the play tonight” to get her to cam.
“Since she moved [to Bucharest] she’s been fed. But nothing else,” he writes. “She’s broke. And she can’t go home. And she can’t leave the house. Man, I sound almost evil. But I’m not. I’m a Shephard. Leading the sheep. She doesn’t realize that following me makes life better for her.”
In later messages, Tate describes how he uses the woman requesting money from him against her, framing camming as a group effort and using his discussions with her as a template for men trying to get their own female partners to cam: “‘We’re going to be traveling the world together. I’m working from my phone. We’re a team you’re gonna listen to me,'” he instructs them to say. If they don’t respond, he says, “let her sit broke to think. If in a few days still refuses, then failed attempt. Kick her out.”
“Understood, good play,” another War Room member responds. (The Polaris Project describes the process of exploitation thusly: “The way traffickers begin the process of exploiting their victims isn’t always transparent. They may start slowly, by pushing their victim to do things they might be uncomfortable with,” before convincing them that sex work is “a way for them to reach common goals.”)
Tate also describes an elaborate ruse by which he convinces the woman to cam by manufacturing a fake conversation between himself and his assistant and so-called “bottom bitch,” Georgiana Nagel, who is one of two women also being investigated by Romanian authorities for allegedly forming a criminal organization to exploit women. (Nagel has denied the allegations, and did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.) The goal of staging the fake conversation, he explains, is to dispel the woman’s suspicions that he is trying to pressure her into camming while further convincing her to work for him.
In a screengrab of the fake conversation, Nagel asks of the woman, “Why doesn’t she work for me on OnlyFans she will make a lot of money?”
“I don’t want her to think that’s why she came to Bucharest,” Tate responds.
“Wtf you’re rich why would we need her for money?” Nagel responds with a smiley face. “She can work with me and make 3000 a month and live in Bucharest with you….she’s taking pics all the time and make no money, why can’t she sell them?”
In the War Room chat logs, Tate explains the purpose of staging such a ploy, as well as why he is outlining it in such detail to his followers: “I’ll do this for every girl I get to work if you guys see the value,” he says. “[You] guys can use your bottom bitch to do whatever G is doing.” He also sends a screengrab of a later conversation between him and Nagel in which he appears to explicitly instruct her to get the woman to do OnlyFans.
“Make [name redacted] take her OnlyFans pics. I wanna see them,” he writes.
“OK,” Nagel responds.
“Get her on OnlyFans. I want money from her,” he responds. “No time for drama.”
“Today she starts doing content,” Nagel responds.
A source previously close to the Tates who reviewed the messages said Tate’s argument to get the woman to do sex work — that he is rich, and therefore doesn’t need her income — echoed previous conversations they had had about the topic. “This is 100 percent the way [the Tates’] mind[s] operates in regards to all females,” the source told Rolling Stone. “I honestly don’t think they feel anything for any woman in terms of real genuine feelings and respect.”
According to court documents obtained by Rolling Stone, Tate is under investigation by Romanian prosecutors for bringing the woman to Bucharest in May 2021 and forcing her to create pornographic content for him. On social media, the woman has vociferously denied she is a victim of the Tates. “The corruption is disgusting. WAKE UP PEOPLE!,” she wrote on Jan. 23. “I am not a Victim. There are no Victims in the Tate case.”
In a February 2023 court document obtained by Rolling Stone, prosecutors claimed that she and another woman associated with the Tates were taken to Dubai and instructed to make content defending them. Recent photos on the woman’s Instagram account feature her with another woman who has been romantically involved with Tristan Tate and is based in Dubai, and has been linked to a number of Tate-owned businesses.
On July 18, a Romanian court ruled to continue the Tates’ house arrest for another 30 days as the investigation into their activities continues. Tate has repeatedly claimed that the allegations against him are part of a larger conspiracy to silence him, tweeting on Tuesday, “there are Matrix agents on all sides of the political spectrum.”
Best of Rolling Stone