Devon and Cornwall Police has been successful in its bid to seize more than £2 million from controversial influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan over claims they owe millions in unpaid tax, the Chief Magistrate has ruled.
The force made a bid to seize the money, held in seven frozen bank accounts, from the Tates and a woman identified only as J.
Judgment was handed down by Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
In July, at an earlier hearing, Sarah Clarke KC, representing the force, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the brothers are “serial tax and VAT evaders”.
It is alleged that they failed to pay a penny in tax on £21 million of revenue from their online businesses, including War Room, Hustlers’ University, Cobra Tate and OnlyFans, between 2014 and 2022.
Ms Clarke quoted from a video posted online by Andrew Tate, in which he said: “When I lived in England I refused to pay tax.”
The court heard he said his approach was “ignore, ignore, ignore because in the end they go away”.
It is claimed that the brothers paid just under 12 million US dollars into an account in the name of J, and opened a second account in her name, even though she had no role in their businesses.
Part of the money that Devon and Cornwall Police wish to seize is cryptocurrency held in an account in her name.
J received a payment of £805,000 into her Revolut account, the court heard.
Of this, £495,000 was paid to Andrew Tate, and £75,000 to an account in J’s name that was later converted to cryptocurrency, it is alleged.
Gary Pons, for J, argued that the funds in the Gemini account were in cryptocurrency and, therefore, could not be frozen at that time.
In the Tates’ defence, Martin Evans KC said that the bank transfers made by the brothers were “entirely orthodox” for people who run online businesses.
If the former kickboxers had wanted to distance themselves from the money, they did “a singularly bad job” because they moved it into accounts in their own names, he added.
The siblings spent money on several “exotic motor cars” but nothing illegal, he told the court. The proceedings are civil, which carries a lower standard of proof than criminal cases.
Senior District Judge Goldspring will decide on the balance of probabilities whether what the police claim is true.
The Tates are facing a series of separate criminal allegations in Romania and are set to be extradited to the UK once those proceedings are concluded so that they can face further accusations here.
They are accused of human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women in one case in Romania, in which Andrew Tate is also accused of rape.
A second more recent set of human trafficking charges saw a fleet of luxury cars towed away from their home in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.
Bedfordshire Police secured an international arrest warrant for the brothers relating to allegations of rape and human trafficking dating back to 2012-2015, which they deny.
Andrew Tate has been banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook after the platforms accused him of posting hate speech and misogynistic comments, including that women should bear responsibility for being sexually assaulted.
But he remains popular on X, with almost 10 million followers, many young men and schoolchildren.
In July, senior police officers in the UK warned that influencers like Andrew Tate could radicalise social media followers into extreme misogyny in the same way that terrorists draw in their followers.
