Video showing Andrew and Tristan Tate walking out of the headquarters of Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) dates back to at least April 12, 2022.
The clip has been taken out of context online. Pointing to a recent report by Romanian outlet Digi 24 about the brothers’ arrest on Dec. 29, which included undated b-roll footage, social media users falsely claimed that the ex-kickboxer and his brother were no longer detained.
Examples of users misrepresenting the footage in the newscast are viewable on Twitter (here) and Facebook (here).
Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer, and his brother Tristan were detained alongside two Romanian suspects in Bucharest on Thursday for an initial 24 hours on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organized crime group, Reuters reported (here).
Reuters reported late on Friday that a Romanian court had agreed to a request from prosecutors to extend the brothers’ detention by 30 days (here)
The Dec. 29 Digi24 newscast being circulated is viewable on YouTube (here). Per Google Translate, the clip is entitled “New raids on millionaire brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate.”
An excerpt of the footage, in which the brothers are seen leaving the DIICOT headquarters in Bucharest (goo.gl/maps/MFKRcf27aopDzRG68), can be found in another report by Digi24, published on April 12, 2022 (here starting around timestamp 00:50)
According to the April report, the brothers at that time “were questioned for nearly five hours at DIICOT headquarters” and “were later released”.
Carmen Constantin, News Editor at Digi24, told Reuters the footage in question “was archive, but unfortunately was not marked appropriately during that broadcast”.
“Andrew and Tristan Tate were NOT released tonight,” Constantin wrote via email on Dec. 30.
Reuters previously addressed another months-old video being circulated as recent in relation to the Tate brothers’ arrest (here)
VERDICT
Missing context. Footage showing Andrew and Tristan Tate walking out of the headquarters of Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism dates back to at least April 2022 and was used as b-roll in recent coverage by a Romanian outlet of the Tate brothers’ arrest on Dec. 29.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here.
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