Tate arrested in raid
POIPET, Cambodia — At least 19 people, many of them Thais, were killed and up to 30 were missing after a fire tore through a casino-hotel complex in a Cambodian town on the Thai border, officials said on Thursday.
About 400 employees and patrons were in the Grand Diamond City casino and hotel in the town of Poipet when the fire broke out around midnight, leaving the building charred and gutted by Thursday afternoon.
Cambodian police said hundreds of military, police and volunteer rescue personnel had joined the rescue effort, which was suspended at nightfall given the risk the building might collapse.
Sek Sokhom, head of the Banteay Meanchey provincial information department, said the number of deaths could exceed 20, with 60 people injured. The Cambodian government has set up a committee to investigate the cause of the fire, which remained unclear, he said.
A key part of Cambodia’s tourism industry, casinos in the capital of Phnom Penh and on the borders with Vietnam and Thailand are a draw for visitors from Asian nations that ban gambling.
Those in Poipet are hugely popular with short-term Thai visitors as gambling is illegal across the border and unlicensed casinos operate underground there. Many of the victims were Thai nationals, rescue workers said.
“(The deceased) that we found are Thais, as their IDs show. The bodies now have to be identified,” said 53-year-old rescue worker Somboon Kwanoum.
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BUCHAREST — Romanian prosecutors said on Thursday they have detained divisive internet personality and former professional kickboxer Andrew Tate on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group.
Mr Tate, banned from many social media platforms for misogynistic comments and hate speech, and his brother Tristan will be detained for 24 hours alongside two Romanian suspects, prosecutors from the anti organised-crime unit said in a statement after raiding their properties in Bucharest.
The Tate brothers have been under criminal investigation since April.
They declined to comment but their lawyer confirmed they had been detained.
“The four suspects ... appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost,” prosecutors said.
“They would have gained important sums of money.”
Prosecutors said they had found six women who had been sexually exploited by the suspects. Tate has said women are partially responsible for being raped and that they belong to men. Earlier this week, the British national was told to get a life by climate activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter after he told her he owned 33 cars with “enormous emissions”. ■