Controversial influencer Andrew Tate has been charged with human trafficking and rape, Romanian police said today.

His brother Tristan, 34, and their two Romanian associates have also been charged. All have denied any wrongdoing.

Tate, 36, an online personality and former kickboxer known for his misogynistic comments, was first arrested with his brother at their Bucharest home in December.

They have been in detention or house arrest on and off since then as prosecutors asked for an extension of their investigation.

The Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism said today that the indictment, dated last Thursday, also included charges of forming an organised crime group.

The indictment, filed with the Bucharest court, says the four defendants ‘organised a criminal group with a view to committing the crime of human trafficking on the territory of Romania, but also in other countries, such as the United States of America and Great Britain,’ the force said.

It names seven alleged victims, each accusing the Tate brothers of recruiting them with ‘misleading’ claims about love and marriage.

‘The loverboy method,’ the directorate says.

After being taken to Ilfov, the county that surrounds Bucharest, the indictment says the victims were ‘sexually exploited’ and made to produce pornography.

The tapes were, police said, then distributed over social media. The victims were also made to undergo ‘forced labour’.

Tate has been charged with raping one of the victims, while his brother faces allegations he initiated violence.

The incident says Tristan sought to ‘punish’ one of the victims after they refused to continue making pornography and asked to leave.

The four are also indicted for ‘illegal access to a computer system, altering the integrity of computer data, instigation to assault or other violence and assault or other violence.’

It has also requested that a raft of Tates’ assets be confiscated, including ’15 lands and buildings located within the counties of Ilfov, Prahova and Braşov, 15 luxury cars (and) 14 luxury watches’.

A Romanian judge now has 60 days to look over the case files before they can be sent to the courts.

A spokesperson for Andrew Tate said: ‘We embrace the opportunity it presents to demonstrate their innocence.’

The self-crowned ‘king of toxic masculinity’, Tate has long bragged to his mostly young male followers about this wealth while telling them that men are victims of feminism.

He has, among other things, said that women ‘belong’ to men and that women who are raped are partly responsible for the attacks.

Tate was removed from the reality TV show Big Brother in 2016 after a video showed him hitting a woman with a belt emerged.

While only recently on Twitter, Tristan claimed that ‘wealthy men’ are ‘targets’ in society today.

In the weeks before his arrest, Tate got into an online spat with Greta Thunberg, the teenage environmental activist.

He bragged about his sprawling collection of gas-guzzling luxury cars to Thunberg before asking for her email address.

Thunberg happily obliged, asking him to reach out to her with an email address ending in ‘@getalife.com’.

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