- Andrew Tate has been arrested in connection with an investigation into human trafficking in Romania.
- Investigators said the operation used the “loverboy method” to extort money from the victims.
- The news sparked renewed interest in the technique and a series of viral explanations on TikTok.
TikTokers are working to debunk the ‘loverboy method’ after Romanian authorities accused Andrew Tate of using it to exploit women in a sex trafficking scheme.
Romanian officials cited the method by name when making allegations against Tate, who was arrested in December.
This has sparked renewed interest in the term, especially on TikTok where the creators have worked to explain how the method differs from stereotypes of human relationship.
Among them was Victoria De Vall, who has 372,000 followers, and said she previously worked in a sex trafficking nonprofit. She was using a recent video demystify certain received ideas.
“The majority of sex just won’t be someone ripping you off,” she said. “It will be someone you know who will manipulate you.”
That’s the crux of the loverboy method, DeVall said. In its typical form, it involves men dating a woman and acting as boyfriends to make her fall in love with them.
Then, “once she’s in love with them, they force her to have sex in order to make money from her,” De Vall said.
Tate is accused of forcing women to do porn for his business
Tate, his brother Tristan Tate, and two women are accused of exploiting women to produce pornography for their online business.
In a press release sent to Insider, Romanian agency DIICOT alleged that Tate’s group misled women into thinking they wanted real relationships with them. One of the women was raped, the statement said.
Tate has been very open about his webcam activity, saying on the Fresh & Fit Podcast last year he was making $600,000 a month from 75 female webcam models.
On Tate’s own website, which no longer exists but whose screenshots have been widely sharedTate wrote that 50% of his employees were his girlfriend at some point and “none were in the adult entertainment industry before they met me”.
On the site, he explained a process that is very similar to the loverboy method.
“My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, have sex with her, test if she’s quality, make her fall in love with me until she does everything I say, then put her on webcam so we could get rich together,” he reads.
It is unclear whether what Tate described relates directly to the case against him in Romania.
Most human relationships are nothing like Taken or other movies
Another TikToker, Luna Voyd, who has 11,000 followers, said in a video she hoped Tate’s story would help people understand that human trafficking “isn’t just about thinking it’s someone kidnapping you from a Target parking lot.”
It’s not “a ‘Taken’ storyline,” she said, referring to Liam Neeson’s film where the main character’s daughter is abducted. On the contrary, human traffickers tend to be people who establish a relationship of trust with their victims.
“That kind of guy usually gets girls to trust them, gives them all their passports etc. because he’s her boyfriend, she’s in love with that man even though to him that’s not it,” said said Voyd.
“It’s most likely a partner, a family member, someone who has become close to you – not some random stranger.”
According to EuropolAccording to the EU police agency, the loverboy technique is widely used to “recruit victims facing economic and social difficulties”.
“The suspects target their victims’ vulnerabilities and seduce them with expensive gifts and promises of a better life abroad,” reads its website. This is how many women leave their families in search of love and new opportunities in other countries.
The romance didn’t last long, however, Europol said. Once these women are in the new country, they are forced to earn money for their master and are threatened if they try to run away from home.
Umar Zeb, senior partner at law firm JD Spicer Zeb Solicitors, told Insider that social media has played a huge role in empowering traffickers.
“Not only can victims be searched more widely due to the scope, but the methods of coercion have changed,” he said.
“What was once a long scam, carried out over a long period of time, has now become a much faster form of entrapment, as victims are threatened with blackmail, for example exposure of pornographic images and violence.”
Tate and the others were first held for 24 hours, which is a Romanian court extended to 30 days.
Tate has yet to publicly respond to the allegations, other than a cryptic tweet casting the investigation as a conspiracy.
11 of Tate and his brother’s cars were seized as part of the investigation, Romanian officials told Insider on Wednesday.
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