Police plan to impound a £2.8m pound Bugatti car belonging to Andrew Tate which the jailed influencer is thought to have been used to troll Greta Thunberg, according to reports.
Tate, who has been imprisoned in Romania since late December, engaged in a Twitter row with the climate activist in the days before his arrest on allegations of rape, human trafficking and organised crime.
He boasted of his “33 cars”, including a Bugatti with “a w16 8.0L quad turbo” in an attempt to antagonise Ms Thunberg due to her opposition to the burning of fossil fuels. In response she suggested his grandstanding resulted from “small d*** energy”.
Bucharest authorities have since diminished Tate's boasting rights by seizing more than a dozen cars from his villa in the Romanian capital.
His prized Bugatti may be next, according to Romanian news site Gandul.
Citing judicial sources, the site reports that police are seeking a Bugatti belonging to Tate and his brother Tristan, who was arrested in the same sting.
Romania's National Agency for the Administration of Impaired Assets (ANABI) is reported to have asked authorities in the United Arab Emirates to locate and impound the Bugatti before sending it to Bucharest.
If Tate is convicted, the car and his other seized assets could be sold at auction and used to cover the expenses of the criminal investigation and compensation for victims. Tate has tweeted about owning a Bugatti Chiron, which cost £2.8m according to Auto Trader.
ANABI is also looking for assets held by the Tate brothers in Britain and the USA, Gandul reported.
Tate, who holds British and American citizenship, and his brother last month lost an appeal against seizures of their assets. A lawyer representing Tate said before the ruling that the seizures were disproportionate to the charges against the brothers.
Romania's organised crime investigation body DIICOT said it had identified six victims who were subjected to sexual exploitation by the Tates and two Romanian women who were arrested alongside them. All deny the allegations against them.
The brothers and their co-accused have also lost appeals against their continued detention, with a judge most recently ruling they would remain in jail until 27 February at the earliest.
