A British court ruled Wednesday that police can seize more than 2.6 million pounds (US$3.3 million) to cover years of unpaid taxes from influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan.
The Devon and Cornwall Police force went to court to claim the money, held in seven frozen bank accounts, from the Tates and a woman identified only as J.
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring ruled that financial transactions by the brothers, including transferring almost $12 million into an account in the name of J, were a “straightforward cheat” of the tax authorities.
A lawyer for the force said that the Tates were “serial” tax evaders who failed to pay any tax on 21 million pounds in revenue from their online businesses, including War Room, Hustlers’ University, Cobra Tate and OnlyFans, between 2014 and 2022.
Andrew Tate, 38, accused the government of “outright theft” for freezing his accounts and seizing “everything they could.”
“This is not justice; it’s a coordinated attack on anyone who dares to challenge the system,” Tate said in a statement. “This raises serious questions about the lengths authorities will go to silence dissent.”
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
At a hearing in July, lawyer Sarah Clarke quoted from a video posted online by Andrew Tate, in which he said: “When I lived in England I refused to pay tax.”
She said J — who can’t be named because of a court order — wasn’t involved with the brothers’ businesses.
A lawyer for the brothers, Martin Evans, argued that the bank transfers were “entirely orthodox” for people who run online businesses. He said the siblings spent money on a number of “exotic motor cars,” but did nothing illegal.
The proceedings are civil, which carries a lower standard of proof than criminal cases. Goldspring had to decide on the balance of probabilities whether the Tates had evaded tax.
Court documents show an estimated total of 2,683,345.88 pounds (about $3.4 million) is held in the seven accounts police can now seize.
Andrew Tate is a former kickboxer and dual British-U.S. citizen who has amassed more than 10 million followers on X. He has been banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook after the platforms accused him of posting hate speech and misogynistic comments.
He and Tristan Tate, 36, face criminal allegations in Romania, including human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women. They are set to be extradited to the U.K. once those proceedings are over to face further allegations of rape and human trafficking.
The Tates deny all the allegations.
___
Associated Press writers Brian Melley in London and Stephen McGrath in Warwick, England contributed to this story.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
