that US officials had brought up the case of Tate and his brother Tristan, both former kickboxers with dual US and British citizenship, in a phone call to the Romanian government. It said Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell followed up with Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at the Munich Security Conference. A source told the FT a request was made to return the brothers’ passports and allow them to travel while they wait for court proceedings to conclude.

The brothers are banned from leaving Romania pending a criminal investigation on accusations of forming an organized criminal group, human trafficking, trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering. They have denied all wrongdoing. Tate, the highest profile suspect facing trial for human trafficking in Romania, was banned from almost all social media platforms before Trump’s now adviser Elon Musk took over X and reinstated his account.

Hurezeanu told Euronews late last Tuesday he had had an informal chat with Grenell in a hallway during the Munich conference. Hurezeanu cited Grenell as saying he remained interested in the fate of the Tate brothers. “I did not perceive this statement as pressure, just a repeat of a known stance,” Hurezeanu said. “I don’t know what pressures of another nature were made before or after but what I discussed with Mr. Grenell was cordial, informal, brief, non-binding and I certainly did not detect any form of pressure.” A first criminal case against Tate and his brother failed in December when a Bucharest court decided not to start the trial, citing flaws in the indictment.