One of the most popular tweets of all time preceded a high-profile house raid and arrest of a right-wing provocateur and internet dude-bro. And the internet is having a field day with it all.
On Thursday, noted misogynist and former kickboxing champ Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, were detained and charged with human trafficking and forming an organized crime group. The brothers were detained in Romania along with two Romanian suspects. One of the four suspects was also charged with rape, but has not been named.
The arrests follow a Twitter war between Andrew Tate and climate activist Greta Thunberg. Even as authorities deny the correlation, social media continues to buzz about the irony of it all.
On Tuesday, Tate, 37, tweeted at the 19-year-old to brag about his cars. Tate had previously been banned from Twitter — along with other social media platforms — for harmful, misogynistic content including a tweet that victim-blamed rape survivors. His Twitter profile was reinstated when billionaire Elon Musk took over.
“I have 33 cars,” Tate tweeted to Thunberg. “Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”
In what can only be considered the mic drop heard worldwide, Thunberg replied: “yes, please do enlighten me,” she tweeted, telling him to get a life.
As of Friday morning, Thunberg’s response holds the No. 6 spot of all-time top-liked tweets with 3.4 million likes. To date, the top tweet is from the family of the celebrated Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman announcing his surprise death following a secret battle with colon cancer. Other tweets ahead of Thunberg are by Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.
Tate replied again Wednesday with a video that showed him in a red robe, smoking a cigar and holding two boxes of pizza. The next day, his luxury villa was raided and photographs and video footage showed Tate being escorted in handcuffs by law enforcement.
Though authorities deny a connection between the Twitter feud and Tate’s arrest, internet sleuths speculated that Tate’s video response to Thunberg — which revealed a local pizza chain’s branding — served as a tip on his whereabouts.
Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism told the Washington Post that a months-long investigation led to the Tate brothers’ arrest. If convicted they could serve years of prison time.
Even with authorities denying that pizza boxes led to Tate’s arrest, the internet continues to joke about the timing of how things unfolded and credit Thunberg for his detainment.
Andrew Tate’s talent agent told the Washington Post that the allegations of human trafficking were “an orchestrated hoax put on by the matrix.”
A spokesperson for the brothers declined to comment on the situation.
“Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can,” the spokesperson said.
But someone who did have a response was Thunberg.
On Friday morning, she tweeted: “this is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”
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