Leaked chats show how Andrew Tate and associates lured women into sex trafficking: report

Leaked messages show influencer Andrew Tate and his "War Room" group discussed techniques for grooming women into online sex work using violence and isolation from their friends and families.

The 36-year-old former kickboxer has been charged in Romania with rape and human trafficking, and the BBC published details from the encrypted Telegram messages sent between March 2019 and April 2020 that suggest the trafficking operation was led not by Tate but a Chicago native called Miles Sonkin, reported The Daily Beast.

“Then we ‘punish’ her for a transgression — real or imagined — by having her get our name tattooed on her,” read a post allegedly sent by Sonkin, who uses the alias “Iggy Semmelweiss." "Leaving her’s family’s home/apartment/town/country, WebCamming/stripping/walking the track for us, getting us girls, escalate, escalate, escalate.”

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Two days later, Sonkin allegedly wrote that "isolating her from her family, friends, past, is the KINDEST thing you can do for her IF you are taking RESPONSIBILITY for having SOLE AUTHORITY over her.”

The BBC reports that Sonkin had an interest in right-wing extremism in the early 2000s and has been involved with at least two groups suspected of being cults.

According to Tate, who has denied all wrongdoing, the War Room gives members, who pay $8,000 a year, "access to thousands of professionals from around the world who encourage personal responsibility and accountability, [emphasizing] the importance of taking ownership of your choices and actions.”

The group reportedly had 434 members worldwide as of August 2022, and the chats show another member with the pseudonym "Joe Lampton" claims he violently responded to a complaint by a woman working for him.

“I took her keyboard and hit her in the head with it,” the post reads. “She went into the room and worked 7 hours without any break.”

A spokeswoman for Tate called reporting on the War Room chats “another brazen attempt to present one-sided, unverified” claims that are “not only present false accusations, but insult the massive community that considers Andrew Tate a life changing positive force.”