When Andrew Tate was led away by Romanian police in handcuffs with his brother, he could be seen making a mystery hand sign which his followers will often mimic.
With his thumbs and index fingers touching to create a triangle, Tate says the hand signal allows him to ‘power up’.
At surface level, it appears that the misogynistic influencer could be making the Buddhist Uttara Bodhi Mudra hand gesture.
However, conspiracy theories about the signs have been fuelled by Tate’s constant references to ‘the matrix’. Others have speculated it is to do with the Illuminati.
The brothers’ alarming influence on young men has resulted in schoolchildren mimicking the hand gesture – which teachers have raised concerns over.
And most recently, TikTok prankster Mizzy, 19, was yesterday photographed flashing the hand sign as he was spared jail for stealing a woman’s phone.
Former professional kickboxer and influencer Andrew Tate makes a gesture with his hands as he is escorted in handcuffs in Romania
Tate (centre) handcuffed to his brother Tristan as he arrived to the Court of Appeal in Bucharest, Romania in February 2023. The signal is to help him ‘power up’
Andrew Tate said he copied the gesture form his father and explained: ‘The reason I do it is because when your brain is as advanced as mine, you have to complete the circuit,’ saying he was ‘full of electricity’ with ‘blood on fire’
Teachers have raised concerns over schoolchildren copying the hand gesture, which Tate is making here again
The gesture could be linked to the Buddhist mudra of enlightenment which is often used in yoga and looks to be the same signal being made by Tate.
Tate has previously revealed he copied it from his American chess International Master father, Emory Tate, who used to regularly make the gesture while playing sport.
The influencer says he does the same as ‘he is his father’s son’. He also claims it allows him to ‘complete the circuit’ – a reference to his own body and brain.
Tate, who says the gesture helps him ‘power up’, has previously stated: ‘I am not associated with the Illuminati’.
The Tate brothers have used the hand gesture several times in the past in videos and photo shoots – as well as when they were hauled away by Romanian police on charges including human trafficking and rape.
Cassie Rattray, a 25-year-old sex education teacher in Liverpool, told VICE in January that she had seen boys making the gesture.
She also told how pupils were reciting Tate’s quotes in her classes, including one that got Tate banned from Twitter in 2017. The Tate quote the boy repeated was: ‘If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility.’
Another teacher from the east of England said they saw a group of 11-year-olds making the gesture. They were ‘very deliberately sitting in a row all doing it with their hands on the desk.’
Tate is seen doing the hand gesture again as he poses in front of a luxury red Ferrari
TikTok prankster Mizzy was photographed flashing the ‘power up’ hand sign made famous by Tate as he was spared jail yesterday
Tim Squirrel, an extremism expert from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, told VICE that teachers should not be concerned about the gesture itself but more by what it represents.
‘For women and girls who are around it, that doesn’t really make much of a difference – ‘ironic’ endorsement of violent misogyny is, in many instances, indistinguishable from the real thing and creates an unsafe atmosphere for them,’ he said.
According to The New York Post, Tate explained in one video ‘I’m not associated with the Illuminati’ and said the sign was a ‘power up’.
‘The reason I do it is because when your brain is as advanced as mine, you have to complete the circuit,’ he said, saying he was ‘full of electricity’ with ‘blood on fire’.
‘I do it because it increases my powers – it’s like a power up,’ he said.
In the clip, Tate told his ‘gentlemen’ followers to try it.
TikTok menace Mizzy, who often makes the hand gesture, revealed in May 2023 how Tate and his brother Tristan had reached out to him.
He said he was ‘in talks with the Tate brothers’, adding: ‘I have the power now.’
At the time O’Garro released a video alongside a lengthy statement on social media in which he admitted to having ‘put my mind into Mizzy being the biggest menace in the UK’.
He said: ‘The Tate Brothers have been helping me immensely, teaching me to actually take people’s feelings in and hold more accountability for my actions as I develop into a man.
‘They are also showing me that I can accomplish what I want in ways that won’t make me look like a villain and in the process also help others.’
The TikTok terror was snapped at a previous court appearance in August last year using the hand sign, but insisted he wasn’t copying anyone.
O’Garro revealed in May 2023 he was ‘in talks with the Tate brothers’, adding: ‘I have the power now.’
‘I am my own person and he [Andrew Tate] just helped me realise how doing this could benefit me,’ he said in a social media post.
‘This is called a mudra, it is a symbolic hand gesture commonly used in in Hinduism and Buddhism.
‘Mudras help link the mind to the body and your conscious to your sub conscious. It gives me power.
‘People thinking it’s an illuminati pose are brainwashed bots.’