In a tweet after the former kickboxer and reality TV star was taken into custody along with his brother, Tristan, in Romania, Thunberg wrote: “This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.”
Thunberg was making reference to unconfirmed reports that authorities detained Tate after he inadvertently gave away his location by using a pizza takeaway box from Romania in a video he posted online.
Tate shared the video in response to a mocking tweet sent by Thunberg telling him to email her at “smalld***energy@getalife.com” after Tate told the climate change activist, unprompted, that he had owned 33 cars with “enormous emissions.”
Thunberg’s reaction has become one of the most liked tweets of all time, and is currently at 3.2 million likes.
Thunberg’s latest tweet about recycling pizza boxes also went viral almost immediately, being retweeted more than 35,000 times and viewed nearly 3 million times around 30 minutes after it was posted.
The claim that Tate was detained after confirming his location by a takeaway pizza box spread widely on social media on Thursday, but has not been confirmed by authorities.
Tate, who was banned from several social media platforms for his misogynistic comments and other hate speech, is believed to have been in Romania for the past few months, and has previously said that’s where he was currently located in other social media posts.
Romanian authorities have been investigating the Tate brothers since April after their home was raided amid allegations that a woman was being held there against her will.
According to a press release from Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, authorities detained two British citizens—believed to be the Tate brothers—and two Romanians on suspicion of being part of a human trafficking operation.
The suspects are alleged to have used a “loverboy method” to convince women they are in relationships with them before forcing them to perform pornographic content for dissemination through social media platforms and websites.
A lawyer for the Tate brothers confirmed to Reuters that the pair had been detained after their property in Bucharest was raided.
“The four suspects … appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites for a cost,” prosecutors said. “They would have gained important sums of money.”
Authorities said they have identified six women who were allegedly sexually exploited by the suspects.
12/30/2022, 5:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with more information about Andrew Tate’s arrest.
