"Construction on the first phases of a resort east of Blowing Rock dedicated to Transcendental Meditation (TM) could begin this October," read an article from this week in the Watauga Democrat. The lead developer was David Kaplan.
"Since September 1993, Kaplan and other followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an Indian-born mystic who developed TM, had bought almost 1,500 acres of land for the retreat and have worked on its development plans," the article said.
According to the article, the group of followers was led by Kaplan and they spent more than $2 million on land in the Blue Ridge and Elk townships in Watauga County. At the time, Kaplan said the development would take up to 10 years to complete. The development was expected to include four or five villages, homesites, hotels and a health spa. There were also two non-profit sites to be developed.
The non-profit site was to consist of 100 villas, which was to become the home of 100 full-time meditators, which the TM organization called "world peace professionals."
Kaplan named that site "The Spiritual Center of America."
The first for-profit phase was to include a village of villas, condominiums, a hotel, and a health spa.
"That part, which has been named Heavenly Mountain Resort, will be developed by Kaplan, who is the sole owner of Heavenly Mountain Inc., the site's development company," the article said.
The Tate brothers have been charged with more than 20 offences against four women in the UK, including rape and prostitution, The Telegraph can reveal.
Andrew Tate, 38, is accused of 10 charges including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain against three women.
His brother, Tristan, 36, has been charged with 11 offences including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking; charges connected to one alleged victim.
A CPS spokesman said: "We can confirm that we have authorised charges against Andrew and Tristan Tate for offences including rape, human trafficking, controlling prostitution and actual bodily harm against three women.
"These charging decisions followed receipt of a file of evidence from Bedfordshire Police.
"A European Arrest Warrant was issued in England in 2024, and as a result the Romanian courts ordered the extradition to the UK of Andrew and Tristan Tate.
"However, the domestic criminal matters in Romania must be settled first.
"The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendants have the right to a fair trial.
"It is extremely important that there be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings."
"This article examines the sexual grooming of children and their caregivers in a wide variety of religious settings. We argue that unique aspects of religion facilitate institutional and interpersonal grooming in ways that often differ from forms of manipulation in secular settings. Drawing from Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism, and Seventh Day Adventism) and various sects (the Children of God, the Branch Davidians, the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints, a Hindu ashram, and the Devadasis), we show how some religious institutions and leadership figures in them can slowly cultivate children and their caregivers into harmful and illegal sexual activity. A number of uniquely religious characteristics facilitate this cultivation: theodicies of legitimation; power, patriarchy, obedience, protection, and reverence toward authority figures; victims' fears about spiritual punishments; and scriptural uses to justify adult-child sex."
The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not imply that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly endorse the content. We provide information from multiple perspectives to foster dialogue.
After being part of a group in their youth that claimed people could levitate or bring about world peace through meditation, Joe Kelly and Patrick Ryan, from the US city of Philadelphia, now help others escape abusive cults. One of the cases they are working on is a 21-year-old from a wealthy family who is fascinated by Andrew Tate.
Together with psychologists, psychiatrists and other specialists, Patrick and Joe develop strategies for the families of people who have been brainwashed so that they can escape the influence of the leaders of controversial groups.
These two spoke with the HotNews journalist in Philadelphia.
I met Joe Kelly (69) and Patrick Ryan (67) in a hipster coffee shop in the neighborhood where they live. Joe and Patrick are a couple who are what are called " cult interventionists " or "deprogrammers." That is, they help people get out of abusive cults: they say they "deprogram" them, after they have been brainwashed by charismatic leaders who, most of the time, are nothing more than scammers.
In most cases, Joe and Patrick are called to help by the families of those who fall under the influence of such a leader. According to some estimates from 2023, there would be over 10,000 cults active in the United States . But it's not just America on this map because the two have had cases from Europe to Australia. And in America, Joe and Patrick are not the only ones who are involved in this activity.
Success as a cult interventionist is by no means guaranteed, however. Joe Kelly tells me that since he began rescuing people involved in cults in 1992, he has had a failure rate of about 40-50 percent.
The Cult of Andrew Tate in America
Although when we talk about cults our mind automatically leads us to the idea of religion, in reality things are much more complex. Andrew Tate, for example, is nothing more than the leader of such a cult, even if there is nothing religious in what he preaches, according to Joe Kelly. And he is not the only one.
Beyond the criminal charges brought against him by prosecutors in Romania, of trafficking minors, sexual exploitation of women, money laundering and others, Tate has a huge impact on young people, even across the ocean. Or especially here.
The influence in the United States of leaders who preach extreme misogyny is no coincidence, says Patrick Ryan.
"In the US, for example, there is the 'Sterling Institute of Relationships' where young men sign up to be taught to be 'real men'. And if they are real men, they can have sex with whoever they want. Because that's what men do. And women's role is to submit," Patrick Ryan explains to me.
The two say that they are currently working with a young man from Philadelphia whose parents want to remove him from the influence of Andrew Tate and the internet groups that follow the teachings of the former kickboxer, who moved to Romania.
The young man who started calling his own mother "unfortunate"
I asked Joe and Patrick to give me some details about the case they're working on.
It's about a young man from a wealthy family, with a father known in the U.S. The name and other identifying details are confidential, the two explain to me.
The 21-year-old was sent to one of the good schools in the USA.
"At some point, the boy started drinking and watching videos with Andrew Tate. He dropped out of school, after being instilled with the idea that 'you don't need a regular university, you have nothing to learn there. I went to university and it's useless, we tell you what you need to be successful in life'. That's what the so-called 'life coaches' he was following told him," says Patrick.
What's worse is that, from these videos, the young man learned that women are "bitches" and began to treat his mother in this way.
From their findings, people often join dangerous groups because the problems come from the family. And part of Joe and Patrick's work means therapy with families, which need to be transformed into safe environments where victims can return safely.
"We need to create a stable environment, with access to help for mental health issues, a healthy place. Because otherwise, dangerous groups become more attractive, and victims return there."
"How is the extraction of the young man from under Tate's influence going at this moment?" I asked the interventionists.
Patrick says that the process is ongoing, but that the young man's environment is difficult: he dropped out of school, stays at home, dates many women whom he treats like "dolls." Just as he was taught in the online schools promoted by the Tate brothers.
Joe believes that Andrew Tate's teachings are close to the idea of patriarchy, which can be found in the Old Testament or in fundamentalist Islam.
"In their minds, liberal woke societies have created these women who have equal status to men, when, by nature, men are stronger and should be in control," Joe adds.
But who are Joe and Patrick, and how did they get into the position of helping others break free from the control of certain leaders?
The two people I met the other day at the ReAnimator coffee shop in Philadelphia were also involved in cults. Their story begins many years ago, when there was no internet and the influence of television was overwhelming.
Both Joe and Patrick were part of the "Transcendental Meditation" group founded by an Indian guru, famous at the time, in the 1970s.
"In 1975, I was in high school, 17 years old, when I saw Maharishi Mahesh, known as the "guru of the Beatles ", on TV. He promoted the benefits of meditation, along with famous actors such as Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood and others. At that time, the TM ("Transcendental Meditation") Center, founded by Maharishi, was very successful in America. Adults of all professions, from lawyers, doctors, to housewives, went there to be taught how to meditate and bring world peace. Many came from the Woodstock area, hippies, etc.," Patrick recalls.
The interventionist says his high school teacher encouraged him to take meditation classes, where he was taught by actress Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence . Prudence then referred him to Maharishi University, founded by the famous guru.
Patrick now remembers that at university, for two months in a row he took regular classes with renowned professors, then for a month he had to dedicate himself exclusively to the Maharishi techniques which involved meditation and spending time alone, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
People can fly or walk through walls
Things went crazy in 1977 when Maharishi announced that people could have supernatural powers: they could levitate, walk through walls, become invisible, etc.
"There were famous people who supported this, including, for example, Brian Josephson who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973," Patrick continues.
Obviously, no one managed to acquire those supernatural powers, but, the former member of Maharishi's cult now says, the system was such that it made you believe that it was only your fault if you failed to fly.
"Friends of mine were sent to conflict zones like Mozambique, Lebanon, Somalia, to meditate and mentally stop the wars there. After that, Maharishi's people produced research that demonstrated that, indeed, wars stopped, crime decreased, the stock market increased, thanks to the meditation of these groups of people. So, here it is, the method works," Patrick says.
The interventionist says he began to realize what was happening to him when his father asked him to help one of his sisters who, in turn, had joined a Christian cult called " The International Way " and had severed all ties with the family.
"I called a woman who had also been part of this group to talk to my sister and convince her that it was a scam. As she was talking to my sister, I thought, 'wow, that happened to me at Maharishi University when I came to believe that I was going to save the world by flying,'" Patrick explains.
I was curious what they thought was at stake in this cult and this university (which still exists today). Patrick and Joe say it's about power and money.
"When he came to the US in 1958, Maharishi had no money, and when he died he had a fortune of over a billion dollars ." The Maharishi company also appeared in the Panama Papers revelations with money hidden offshore.
What exactly does a "cult intervention specialist" do?
Joe Kelly says he basically helps families develop strategies, along with psychiatrists, psychologists and other specialists, to communicate with loved ones who have become involved in these controversial groups.
"It's not a standard procedure, it varies from case to case, but we ask about 85 questions to see if we're a good fit to help them. Then, if we conclude that we can get involved, we do an assessment, which takes about eight hours, like 'where are you from, what's your relationship with your family members, etc. We also interview your family members to see what the dynamics are between them,'" Joe explains how the first interactions with those who have been victims of an abusive cult go.
Joe Kelly says he basically helps families develop strategies, along with psychiatrists, psychologists and other specialists, to communicate with loved ones who have become involved in these controversial groups.
"It's not a standard procedure, it varies from case to case, but we ask about 85 questions to see if we're a good fit to help them. Then, if we conclude that we can get involved, we do an assessment, which takes about eight hours, like 'where are you from, what's your relationship with your family members, etc. We also interview your family members to see what the dynamics are between them,'" Joe explains how the first interactions with those who have been victims of an abusive cult go.
The two say they turn to all kinds of specialists to help them in their endeavor because cults are also very different. For example, in cases of "sex cults", they turn to experts specializing in sex therapy.
I'm curious if Joe and Patrick need a license for their work and how many people they've helped in their work. They tell me they don't need to get a license, as long as the specialized help provided to victims and their families comes from people with the necessary training.
"The services we provide for the families who call on us are not cheap at all because the experts we call on are not cheap. In addition to this, we volunteer for non-profit organizations and also hold online workshops for families who cannot afford to pay these amounts," explains Patrick, who estimates that "hundreds of people a year" benefit in one form or another from their help.
Patrick says that in January 2020, he began receiving calls from families whose relatives had fallen into so-called " rabbit holes ," a term used to describe people who fall prey to conspiracy theories and isolate themselves from others, usually because they "don't understand."
"For example, one of these people was a mother in her 50s, a doctor, who watched conspiracy videos, like " pizza gates " or other crazy ones that said that anyone wearing red shoes is connected to the Vatican or is controlled from another planet.
"The woman had entered a manic state, she no longer slept at night, she only watched videos and she even ended up writing to a local newspaper about these conspiracies," says Patrick.
QAnon has taken over mythologies, old conspiracy theories, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a hoax invented by the Russians of the Tsarist Empire Here to justify the killing of Jews, Patrick and Joe further explain.
Why do people get involved in cults?
I ask Patrick and Joe why they think people get involved in these cults. What needs do they have that they can't meet otherwise?
Patrick says that, in his experience, neither a person's wealth, education, or intelligence matters.
"Generally, they are not satisfied with their lives and want a better one. They start reading about other people who have been helped by certain 'gurus', they go to seminars without knowing what the agenda of that seminar is. But many times, the problems are in the family," explains Patrick.
Regarding the differences between cults from the 80s, 90s, and today's, the two interventionists say that before the advent of the internet, the number of members of such a group was much higher, 10 million people, "like Scientologists, for example."
"Now the groups are much smaller, because people can Google and find out things about that group or leader: 'look, there's a problem here,'" says Patrick.
Joe believes that "aesthetic" is the word that best defines their work because what they do most is help families understand why some members value something that they cannot understand. Only in this way can they be convincing to those who have been seduced by a particular cult.
"If you come to my house and see a painting on the wall and say, 'What an ugly painting,' then where do we end up? On the other hand, if you say, 'What an interesting composition, but I wonder why the artist wanted to do that?' then it's a completely different matter. We try to teach families to appreciate what their loved ones appreciate, and then they will have a chance of success," concludes Patrick.
Cults101.orgresources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.
The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.
Patrick Ryan, left, and Joe Kelly. In the background, guru Maharishi Mahesh with Beatles members George Harrison, left, and John Lennon, in 1967. Photo: AP / Profimedia
After being part of a group in their youth that claimed people could levitate or bring about world peace through meditation, Joe Kelly and Patrick Ryan, from the US city of Philadelphia, now help others escape abusive cults. One of the cases they are working on is a 21-year-old from a wealthy family who is fascinated by Andrew Tate.
Together with psychologists, psychiatrists and other specialists, Patrick and Joe develop strategies for the families of people who have been brainwashed so that they can escape the influence of the leaders of controversial groups.
These two spoke with the HotNews journalist in Philadelphia.
I met Joe Kelly (69) and Patrick Ryan (67) in a hipster coffee shop in the neighborhood where they live. Joe and Patrick are a couple who are what are called “ cult interventionists ” or “deprogrammers.” That is, they help people get out of abusive cults: they say they “deprogram” them, after they have been brainwashed by charismatic leaders who, most of the time, are nothing more than scammers.
Patrick (left) and Joe, in Philadelphia. Photo: Gabriel Bejan / Hotnews
In most cases, Joe and Patrick are called to help by the families of those who fall under the influence of such a leader. According to some estimates from 2023, there would be over 10,000 cults active in the United States . But it's not just America on this map because the two have had cases from Europe to Australia. And in America, Joe and Patrick are not the only ones who are involved in this activity.
Success as a cult interventionist is by no means guaranteed, however. Joe Kelly tells me that since he began rescuing people involved in cults in 1992, he has had a failure rate of about 40-50 percent.
The Cult of Andrew Tate in America
Although when we talk about cults our mind automatically leads us to the idea of religion, in reality things are much more complex. Andrew Tate, for example, is nothing more than the leader of such a cult, even if there is nothing religious in what he preaches, according to Joe Kelly. And he is not the only one.
Andrew Tate and brother Tristan at the Bucharest Court of Appeal, August 2024. Photo: Lucian Alecu / Alamy / Profimedia
Beyond the criminal charges brought against him by prosecutors in Romania, of trafficking minors, sexual exploitation of women, money laundering and others, Tate has a huge impact on young people, even across the ocean. Or especially here.
The influence in the United States of leaders who preach extreme misogyny is no coincidence, says Patrick Ryan.
Patrick Ryan, photo from personal archive.
"In the US, for example, there is the 'Sterling Institute of Relationships' where young men sign up to be taught to be 'real men'. And if they are real men, they can have sex with whoever they want. Because that's what men do. And women's role is to submit," Patrick Ryan explains to me.
The two say that they are currently working with a young man from Philadelphia whose parents want to remove him from the influence of Andrew Tate and the internet groups that follow the teachings of the former kickboxer, who moved to Romania.
The young man who started calling his own mother "unfortunate"
I asked Joe and Patrick to give me some details about the case they're working on.
It's about a young man from a wealthy family, with a father known in the U.S. The name and other identifying details are confidential, the two explain to me.
The 21-year-old was sent to one of the good schools in the USA.
"At some point, the boy started drinking and watching videos with Andrew Tate. He dropped out of school, after being instilled with the idea that 'you don't need a regular university, you have nothing to learn there. I went to university and it's useless, we tell you what you need to be successful in life'. That's what the so-called 'life coaches' he was following told him," says Patrick.
What's worse is that, from these videos, the young man learned that women are "bitches" and began to treat his mother in this way.
From their findings, people often join dangerous groups because the problems come from the family. And part of Joe and Patrick's work means therapy with families, which need to be transformed into safe environments where victims can return safely.
"We need to create a stable environment, with access to help for mental health issues, a healthy place. Because otherwise, dangerous groups become more attractive, and victims return there."
"How is the extraction of the young man from under Tate's influence going at this moment?" I asked the interventionists.
Patrick says that the process is ongoing, but that the young man's environment is difficult: he dropped out of school, stays at home, dates many women whom he treats like "dolls." Just as he was taught in the online schools promoted by the Tate brothers.
Joe Kelly, photo from personal archive
Joe believes that Andrew Tate's teachings are close to the idea of patriarchy, which can be found in the Old Testament or in fundamentalist Islam.
"In their minds, liberal woke societies have created these women who have equal status to men, when, by nature, men are stronger and should be in control," Joe adds.
But who are Joe and Patrick, and how did they get into the position of helping others break free from the control of certain leaders?
Pat and Joe in a photo from their youth.
The two people I met the other day at the ReAnimator coffee shop in Philadelphia were also involved in cults. Their story begins many years ago, when there was no internet and the influence of television was overwhelming.
Both Joe and Patrick were part of the "Transcendental Meditation" group founded by an Indian guru, famous at the time, in the 1970s.
Maharishi Mahesh during a class with students at the Harvard Law School Forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 1968. Photo: Bill Chaplis / AP / Profimedia
"In 1975, I was in high school, 17 years old, when I saw Maharishi Manesh, known as the "guru of the Beatles ", on TV. He promoted the benefits of meditation, along with famous actors such as Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood and others. At that time, the TM ("Transcendental Meditation") Center, founded by Maharishi, was very successful in America. Adults of all professions, from lawyers, doctors, to housewives, went there to be taught how to meditate and bring world peace. Many came from the Woodstock area, hippies, etc.," Patrick recalls.
Maharishi with members of the Beatles: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison at a meeting in London, September 1967. Photo: KEYSTONE Pictures USA / Zuma Press / Profimedia
The interventionist says his high school teacher encouraged him to take meditation classes, where he was taught by actress Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence . Prudence then referred him to Maharishi University , founded by the famous guru.
Patrick now remembers that at university, for two months in a row he took regular classes with renowned professors, then for a month he had to dedicate himself exclusively to the Maharishi techniques which involved meditation and spending time alone, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
Patrick, while he was at Maharishi European Research University (L)Maharishi International University (R).
People can fly or walk through walls
Things went crazy in 1977 when Maharishi announced that people could have supernatural powers: they could levitate, walk through walls, become invisible, etc.
"There were famous people who supported this, including, for example, Brian Josephson who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973," Patrick continues.
Obviously, no one managed to acquire those supernatural powers, but, the former member of Maharishi's cult now says, the system was such that it made you believe that it was only your fault if you failed to fly.
"Friends of mine were sent to conflict zones like Mozambique, Lebanon, Somalia, to meditate and mentally stop the wars there. After that, Maharishi's people produced research that demonstrated that, indeed, wars stopped, crime decreased, the stock market increased, thanks to the meditation of these groups of people. So, here it is, the method works," Patrick says.
The interventionist says he began to realize what was happening to him when his father asked him to help one of his sisters who, in turn, had joined a Christian cult called " The International Way " and had severed all ties with the family.
"I called a woman who had also been part of this group to talk to my sister and convince her that it was a scam. As she was talking to my sister, I thought, 'wow, that happened to me at Maharishi University when I came to believe that I was going to save the world by flying,'" Patrick explains.
I was curious what they thought was at stake in this cult and this university (which still exists today). Patrick and Joe say it's about power and money.
"When he came to the US in 1958, Maharishi had no money, and when he died he had a fortune of over a billion dollars ." The Maharishi company also appeared in the Panama Papers revelations with money hidden offshore.
What exactly does a "cult intervention specialist" do?
Joe during a workshop in Dallas, TX.
Joe Kelly says he basically helps families develop strategies, along with psychiatrists, psychologists and other specialists, to communicate with loved ones who have become involved in these controversial groups.
"It's not a standard procedure, it varies from case to case, but we ask about 85 questions to see if we're a good fit to help them. Then, if we conclude that we can get involved, we do an assessment, which takes about eight hours, like 'where are you from, what's your relationship with your family members, etc. We also interview your family members to see what the dynamics are between them,'" Joe explains how the first interactions with those who have been victims of an abusive cult go.
Patrick (M), Joe (R) at a international conference in Beijing, China.
The two say they turn to all kinds of specialists to help them in their endeavor because cults are also very different. For example, in cases of "sex cults", they turn to experts specializing in sex therapy.
I'm curious if Joe and Patrick need a license for their work and how many people they've helped in their work. They tell me they don't need to get a license, as long as the specialized help provided to victims and their families comes from people with the necessary training.
"The services we provide for the families who call on us are not cheap at all because the experts we call on are not cheap. In addition to this, we volunteer for non-profit organizations and also hold online workshops for families who cannot afford to pay these amounts," explains Patrick, who estimates that "hundreds of people a year" benefit in one form or another from their help.
Patrick says that in January 2020, he began receiving calls from families whose relatives had fallen into so-called " rabbit holes ," a term used to describe people who fall prey to conspiracy theories and isolate themselves from others, usually because they "don't understand."
"For example, one of these people was a mother in her 50s, a doctor, who watched conspiracy videos, like " pizza gates " or other crazy ones that said that anyone wearing red shoes is connected to the Vatican or is controlled from another planet.
"The woman had entered a manic state, she no longer slept at night, she only watched videos and she even ended up writing to a local newspaper about these conspiracies," says Patrick.
QAnon has taken over mythologies, old conspiracy theories, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a hoax invented by the Russians of the Tsarist Empire to justify the killing of Jews, Patrick and Joe further explain.
Why do people get involved in cults?
Joe Kelly with cult leader Swami Prakashanand Saraswati in 1987. He was convicted of child sexual abuse but fled to Mexico. Image from Joe and Patrick's personal archive
I ask Patrick and Joe why they think people get involved in these cults. What needs do they have that they can't meet otherwise?
Patrick says that, in his experience, neither a person's wealth, education, or intelligence matters.
"Generally, they are not satisfied with their lives and want a better one. They start reading about other people who have been helped by certain 'gurus', they go to seminars without knowing what the agenda of that seminar is. But many times, the problems are in the family," explains Patrick.
Regarding the differences between cults from the 80s, 90s, and today's, the two interventionists say that before the advent of the internet, the number of members of such a group was much higher, 10 million people, "like Scientologists, for example."
"Now the groups are much smaller, because people can Google and find out things about that group or leader: 'look, there's a problem here,'" says Patrick.
Joe believes that "aesthetic" is the word that best defines their work because what they do most is help families understand why some members value something that they cannot understand. Only in this way can they be convincing to those who have been seduced by a particular cult.
"If you come to my house and see a painting on the wall and say, 'What an ugly painting,' then where do we end up? On the other hand, if you say, 'What an interesting composition, but I wonder why the artist wanted to do that?' then it's a completely different matter. We try to teach families to appreciate what their loved ones appreciate, and then they will have a chance of success," concludes Patrick.
Online influencers like Andrew Tate are radicalising boys into extreme misogyny in a way that is "quite terrifying", police are warning.
Senior police officer Maggie Blyth said young men and boys could be radicalised in the same way that terrorists draw in followers.
The National Police Chiefs Council described the issue as a "national emergency" as it published a report into violence against women and girls.
The NPCC estimated at least one in 12 women in England and Wales would be a victim of violence every year - or about two million women.
And it said the problem had been growing, with "more complicated types of offending".
Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said officers who focused on violence against women and girls were now working with counter-terrorism teams to look at the risk of young men being radicalised.
Speaking about harmful content online, she said: "We know that some of this is also linked to radicalisation of young people online, we know the influencers, Andrew Tate, the element of influencing of particularly boys, is quite terrifying and that's something that both the leads for counterterrorism in the country and ourselves from a VAWG [violence against women and girls] perspective are discussing."
Mr Tate is a controversial British-American influencer and self-proclaimed "misogynist" who rose to fame after appearing on Big Brother in 2016.
He is currently awaiting trial in Romania over allegations of rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women - charges he denies.
Schools across the UK previously told the BBC they were encountering increasing numbers of pupils who admired Mr Tate.
The wide-ranging report by the NPCC and College of Policing published on Tuesday said violence against women and girls had reached "epidemic" levels.
The report estimated that one in 20 adults - or 2.3 million people - were perpetrators of violence against women and girls every year.
"Nobody in industry and in other sectors and across the public understands just the scale and impact of these crimes," Deputy Chief Constable Blyth told BBC Breakfast.
The report identified several key threats facing victims including sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking and child sexual abuse.
It found there had been a 37% increase in the number of violent crimes against women and girls between 2018 and 2023.
Police say more than one million such crimes were recorded in England and Wales last year alone, accounting for 20% of all crimes recorded by the police.
Police chiefs say domestic abuse is growing and remains one of the biggest demands on officers.
Some of the rise has been driven by an increase in reporting and more awareness of those crimes.
The College of Policing says it is creating a central hub which would offer police forces help by providing specialist knowledge and training.
The government says it welcomes the hub and aims to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has previously made clear that violence against women and girls will be at the top of her agenda.
So far the detail on government plans has been light, but in its manifesto, Labour said it would introduce new specialist domestic abuse workers in 999 control rooms and put specialist rape investigation units in every force across England and Wales so that early opportunities for prevention and protection were not missed.
This would entail more trained police officers and extra resources at a time when policing faced numerous challenges including retention and morale issues.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Online influencer Andrew Tate was detained in Romania and handed an arrest warrant issued by British authorities, his spokesperson said Tuesday.
Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan Tate were detained Monday evening for 24 hours on allegations of sexual aggression in a U.K. case dating back to 2012-2015, spokesperson Mateea Petrescu said.
She said the Bucharest Court of Appeal, where the Tate brothers appeared in handcuffs on Tuesday escorted by police, was set to make a “pivotal decision” the same day on whether to execute the warrants issued by the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, in a move that could trigger an extradition process.
Four women had reported Andrew Tate to the U.K. authorities for alleged sexual violence and physical abuse, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him. The alleged victims then turned to crowdfunding to cover their legal costs as they pursue a civil case against him.
“We handed over our evidence about the horrific acts of violence we endured and waited for action. But four years later we were told the U.K. authorities would not prosecute him,” they state on their campaign page. “It’s our one remaining route to hold him accountable.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what Tristan Tate is accused of in the U.K.
Petrescu said Tuesday that the Tate brothers, who are dual U.K. and U.S. citizens, reject the charges and “express profound disappointment that such serious allegations are being resurrected without substantial new evidence.”
Andrew Tate is charged in a separate case in Romania with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. He was arrested near Bucharest in December 2022 along with his brother and two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four in June and they have denied the allegations.
McCue Jury & Partners, the legal firm representing the four British women who accuse Andrew Tate of rape and serious physical and sexual assaults, said in a statement Tuesday they had urged British police to “immediately seek a warrant” for Tate’s detention and extradition after they received information last week that he might be planning to flee Romania.
“Today’s news is very welcome as it had been a significant concern to many that Tate would seek to avoid justice in Romania and abroad,” said Matthew Jury, a managing partner at the law firm. “We are grateful to the British authorities for taking our concerns seriously and issuing an arrest warrant. Tate is accused of serious criminal offenses against a large number of victims and he must be held accountable.”
Jury added that since Tate was arrested in Romania, he has “spread a vast amount of disinformation about the criminal charges he faces in the U.K.” in high-profile interviews with popular media figures such as Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan.
Tate lawyer Eugen Vidineac told journalists at the court on Tuesday that “as far as we know, this investigation was already closed, we don’t know if this investigation is re-opened, if there is any new evidence submitted by the authorities.”
Constantin Gliga, another lawyer representing Tate, said “we don’t have the necessary data” but noted that the court’s decision will help to “clarify the legal situation” in Romania. “After which we will see whether they will be handed over to the British authorities or not,” he said.
Tate, who has amassed 8.9 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He was previously banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and for hate speech.
A post on Tate’s X account on Tuesday that read, “The Matrix is afraid, but I only fear God.” He uses the term “Matrix” to refer to what he sees as a wide-ranging conspiracy targeting men.
After their arrest in Romania, the Tate brothers were held for three months in police detention before being moved to house arrest. They were later restricted to the areas of Bucharest Municipality and nearby Ilfov County. Currently, they cannot leave Romania. The legal case in Romania is still being discussed in the preliminary chamber stages, a process in which the defendants can challenge prosecutors’ evidence. No trial date has been set.
Last October, lawyers for the alleged abuse victims held a news conference in Bucharest in which they accused Andrew Tate and his followers of trying to intimidate their clients into silence.
In January, Tate won an appeal challenging the seizure of his assets by Romanian authorities, which were confiscated in the weeks after he was arrested.
Romanian authorities had seized 15 luxury cars, 14 designer watches and cash in several currencies worth an estimated 3.6 million euros ($3.9 million).
Despite constant death threats, documentary-maker Shea has been investigating the world's most notorious misogynist since 2019. But even he was shocked by what he uncovered working on his latest film
Zoe Williams The Guardian August 28, 2023
'You'd be forgiven for looking at Andrew Tate, especially at our age, and thinking: 'This guy must be some niche figure,'" Matt Shea tells me, in a meeting room at the BBC headquarters in central London. What a courteous young film-maker, I think, because he is 31 and I am old enough to be his mum. "But there was a recent survey by Hope Not Hate which found that 52% of 16- and 17-year-old boys in the UK have a positive view of Andrew Tate, and were more likely to have heard of him than they were Rishi Sunak."
I struggle to believe this: Tate is an ultra-misogynist provocateur, currently charged in Romania with human trafficking and forming an organised crime ring, with investigations ongoing into the trafficking of minors. He is also an obvious blowhard and attention-seeker, and I know enough teenagers to think that surely more than half of them would despise him on that basis alone. I'm wrong, though. Shea continues: "And that number goes a bit higher when [the respondents are] younger, similar surveys all across the world. US, Australia, India: he's huge all across the world. You may not have heard of Andrew Tate, or you may have heard of him but think it's universally accepted that he's a bad person. But your children, your nephews, they are watching him right now and they may not have the same view."
Shea has been researching, following, interviewing and embedding with Tate since 2019, long enough that Tate supporters send constant death threats, on- and offline, and have a moniker for him: DNG (DorkNerdGeek). He meets them often, by chance – an Uber driver, the other day, three security guards at Glastonbury this year who surrounded him, saying he'd stitched up Tate.
Shea grew up in Boston with an Irish mother who was an English teacher and an English father who worked as a biologist, then moved to London to study history at King's College when he was 17. "The first question I always get is: 'Where the hell is your accent from?'" and it is, indeed, all over the place. But there's something else that makes him hard to place, a kind of dual nationality of sensibility. "The sensation of being American in England can feel a little bit disconcerting," he says. "All the values that are considered positive in America – enthusiasm for life, a can-do attitude – are almost considered bad things here." That is true: I can feel myself recoiling as he says them. "Being American in England feels like wearing a Hawaiian shirt at a funeral."
He started as an intern at Vice magazine, and was soon fronting films about drugs and counterculture, with a distinctive, young-millennial style, a break with what we might call the long arc of Theroux-vibe naif. "Gone are the days where, as a presenter, you can come in and play dumb and just ask questions and be curious. These days, audiences expect you to go in critically," he says. He has a mild delivery but a steely, non-pushover core, and is handsome but doesn't play up to it, "like the hot best friend of the lead in a romcom", a colleague from the Vice years observes. That person remembers Shea as extraordinarily hard-working and hands-on, doing research, outreach, contributor calls, shoot prep, shooting, hosting and editing himself, and his early reporting was marked, from a layperson's perspective, by its bravery. The first person to interview the Albanian mafia on camera, he also spent time with cartels in Colombia.
In his Pink Cocaine Wave documentary, a cartel member forced him at gunpoint to try the compound 2CB, the effects of which were "basically a mix of every other drug – MDMA, ketamine, LSD, speed, benzos, everything – all in one, like a mashup, and sometimes fentanyl as well". In the film about Tate, it looked at one point as if he would end up in a cage with a professional cage fighter: he was embedded with Tate's War Rooms, his Transylvanian retreat for men who wish to be manlier, and they were being enjoined to get into a cage or risk humiliation. He never thought he was in danger around Tate, he says. "I did crack my rib but that was it [not in the cage, in a separate "sparring" incident]. It allowed me to gain deeper access to his organisation, to play their game for a little bit."
The morning after Shea and I met, BBC News published the Romanian prosecutors' pre-trial transcripts, in which Tate's brother, Tristan, appears to say he'll "slave these bitches", with testimony from women living in the Tates' house near Bucharest who allege they were forced into webcam sex work for which the brothers kept the money.
If you have seen Shea's documentary from February this year, The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate (BBC Three), this will be eerily familiar – one of Tate's lieutenants describes the ideal day of a woman: she sleeps, she cooks and cleans, she makes online content people pay for and gives him the money, she has sex with him, she smiles at the end of the day and says "thank you". It sounded, though, like a fever dream he was unaccountably sharing with a film-maker – not like something Tate and his followers actually did.
Another charge the Romanian authorities are pressing against Tate also surfaced in Shea's first film: two women give detailed accounts alleging rape, which they reported to the police in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service didn't pursue the allegations despite the fact that,as Shea recaps, "part of the evidence submitted to the police were text messages and voice notes where Andrew Tateappeared to be discussing the rape".
If it sounds like Tate was already hiding in plain sight, that first film "didn't even scratch the surface", Shea says. "I have this sensation of trying to explain to people how important this is. And I can never quite convince people. Hopefully this next documentary goes some way towards answering that."
Tate lacks the dimension and complexity of a compelling villain. "This is a guy who pretends to be a character in The Matrix. His right-hand man pretends to be a wizard," Shea says. "They are all wearing tight-fitting shirts. I've asked his fans, do you ever think this is all a bit cringe?" Yet the phenomenon of his success does throw up questions that are increasingly urgent: how did he acquire this global reach and popularity with his cartoon toxic misogyny and narcissistic Taliban-lite delusions of domination? Where is the money coming from and where is it going? What are the consequences for women who get close enough to him or his followers to experience his worldview first-hand? Where does this end?
It doesn't seem long since Tate was a Luton kickboxer who got thrown out of Big Brother after a video surfaced of him hitting his girlfriend; in fact, that was 2016, which is an age in the life of an influencer, but it was only after TikTok took off, in 2018, that Tate went global. "The speed and relentlessness with which TikTok shows you new things is unprecedented," Shea says. "It's not like other social media. You could be an adolescent boy and you'd be seeing Andrew Tate videos within hours, where he's saying things like, 'Women who choose not to have children are miserable bitches' or 'Virgins are the only women worth marrying'."
Tate was kicked off all the major platforms last year for infringement of their various hate-speech policies, although Elon Musk has since let him back on to X (Twitter). It doesn't make any difference because, Shea says: "It's not him who's posting his videos – it's his army of followers."
TikTok alone didn't make Tate, however: it was also "audience capture", Shea explains, "where the feedback from an audience makes the person creating the content increasingly extreme. It explains a lot of what's happening in this world. You could say that it explains Trump, to a degree, Andrew Tate as well. They reflect back a tantrum that we're all having inside."
Having amassed his army of followers, between 2018 and 2022, "Many of them get filtered to buy his app, The Real World, which used to be called Hustlers University, which promises to teach you to become wealthy: it turns out one of the strategies to becoming wealthy is to share content of Andrew Tate with a sign-up link for Hustlers University."
Tate weaves together everything, from Covid to feminism, to illustrate why young men are the victims of the Matrix – his theory that the world is controlled by a conspiracy of politicians and mainstream media. "A common refrain of the Tate supporters is that they don't teach you how to make money in school because they don't want you to know. They would rather teach you bullshit about biology and English literature. Tate's message is: 'I hold the key to teaching you how to do that, but you have to buy my courses.' So he has weaponised the hyper-capitalised American dream and reframed it as somehow rebellious. This is very similar to Trump as well."
The reason I never took Tate seriously is that toxic masculinity arguments are so riven with contradictions. The message is one of self-discipline, the gym, self-denial, physical endurance and almost monastic self-abnegation – yet the big prize at the end, the thing it's all in the service of, is tits and cars.
That is not even the half of it, Shea says, rattling through the logical failings of the creed: "Traditional masculine men are stoic and don't have emotions, but they also somehow whine constantly about how the world is stacked against them. Men are protectors of women, but then if the women who are making these allegations against Tate are correct, then who protects women from men like Andrew Tate? Family courts are unfair towards men because women often get custody of children, but that's exactly because of the traditional gender roles that they themselves are espousing. It makes no sense, but it doesn't need to make sense."
Examining Tate's nonsense gives you the creeping sense that he is enjoying how irrational and contradictory it is. He knows that winds the "libtards" up more than anything: people who brazenly don't make sense. He is trying to choke us on our own indignation. Besides, reason and ridicule do not deter Tate's followers; the rule of law makes no dent on them.
"This is the thing people need to understand: followers don't have a political interest in Andrew Tate – they see him as a spiritual leader, as a messiah. He saved them from the depths of their insecurity and brought them out of whatever it is that they were struggling with. I've asked, 'What threshold of evidence would you accept that Andrew Tate has potentially committed these crimes, if it was presented to you?' and they said nothing bar Andrew Tate himself saying, 'I did these things.' And that's an incredible amount of power for one person to have over your mind."
Shea tells me about female teachers who have lost control of their classrooms because boys are asking what they are doing teaching when they should be in the kitchen. He has been in touch with women who say their boyfriends have become abusive after following Tate. He tells me that counter-terrorism experts have warned of a huge increase in the number of referrals about Tate followers, but misogynist extremism doesn't reach the threshold for anti-extremist action unless it's connected to the "incel" [involuntarily celibate] movement. Can this possibly be right, I ask, that we don't fear misogynist, extremist violence, unless those misogynists aren't getting laid? "Yes," Shea says. "That is what I'm saying."
He reveals that they have uncovered in this forthcoming, second film that Tate's organisation has been training men to groom women, peddling an ideology that centres on enslaving them. "This isn't just, 'Oh, women should stay in the kitchen and the gender pay gap is a lie.' This is advocating the subjugation of an entire gender into slavery. If you imagined an extremist group with a similar ideology aimed towards an ethnic group, you would think this was one of the most dangerous extremist groups in the world." Tate's representatives describe these as "false accusations" that "insult the massive community that considers Andrew Tate a life-changing, positive force", adding that Tate "will not stand idly by while the media attempts to drag his name through the mud". In Tate's corner, seemingly promoting him as a free speech warrior, are two of the richest men on Earth: Elon Musk (on X) and Peter Thiel (on Rumble). It is incredibly dark.
I wonder about something else: Tate seems quite fixated on Shea, making videos about him, whipping up mobs. Does Shea think Tate needs him, as a kind of Clark Kent nemesis to his super-villain? "I can tell you the people around Andrew Tate are very aware of the history of mythology and comparative mythology. They are very aware of this idea of a hero and an antihero as part of crafting him into a mythological being. But funny you should say that, because he thinks I need him. In fact, he just messaged me recently." He reads out the message from Tate: "'The entire world is interested in me. You are not unique. I don't care what you publish. Neither does anybody else, unless I speak to you. I'm your only chance for relevancy.' And, of course, he's right. Because that's why you're here today."
Andrew Tate: The Man Who Groomed the World? is on BBC Three at 9pm on 31 August, then available on BBC iPlayer, with an Australia screening to be confirmed
