Greta Thunberg mocks Andrew Tate following his arrest in Romania

29 December 2022, 22:03 | Updated: 30 December 2022, 13:31

Greta Thunberg has hit out at self-styled misogynist internet celebrity Andrew Tate after he was arrested in Romania on human trafficking charges.

British-American Tate, 36, has amassed a huge following of young men via Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

He and his brother Tristan were arrested in Bucharest and will be detained for 24 hours, according to Romanian newspaper Gândul.

It comes after the star recently got into a social media spat with climate activist Greta Thunberg, where he bragged about the carbon emissions of his supercars.

Thunberg replied that Tate had "small d*** energy" - winning her more than three million likes.

The 19-year-old was quick to hit out at Tate again following his arrest, tweeting: "This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes."

It followed a video from the social media personality taunting Thunberg while posing alongside a Romanian pizza box, which is understood to have potentially confirmed his location to authorities.

Local reports suggest the US Embassy received a complaint that a woman with American citizenship was being held at their home without consent.

Romanian police said they raided five homes on Thursday, releasing video footage of an obscured operation, although they did not explicitly state the Tate brothers were the subjects of the investigation.

Romania police raid video amid Tate arrest reports

They said: "The four suspects [...] appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost.

"They would have gained important sums of money."

A spokesperson for Tate said: "Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can."

Read more: 'Misogynist' influencer Andrew Tate banned from Facebook and Instagram

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A former policewoman also accused of involvement in the alleged trafficking was arrested on the same charges.

Former Big Brother contestant Tate has almost 3.5 million Twitter followers.

Tate has gained further notoriety online for a number of comments about women, including suggesting that they "bear some responsibility" for being assaulted - an incident for which he was banned from Twitter.

A number of campaign groups have criticised Mr Tate for his views and warned he was a danger to young men and boys who see his content online, urging the various platforms on which he is active to remove him.

Domestic abuse charities have called his content “extreme misogyny”.

In one YouTube video, Tate described himself as “absolutely a misogynist”.

He said: “I’m a realist and when you’re a realist you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.”

In another clip he said: “I will state right now that I am absolutely sexist, I am absolutely a misogynist and I have f*** you money so I’ll say what I want. […] There is no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.”

Videos of and about Mr Tate have also become popular on both YouTube and TikTok - videos using a hashtag of his name have been viewed more than 13 billion times on TikTok alone.

In a statement, a TikTok spokesman said: "Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok. We've been removing violative videos and accounts for weeks, and we welcome the news that other platforms are also taking action against this individual."