The Paris Prosecutor’s Office has ordered the opening of an investigation following the reappearance of the Coco website, which was shut down by the courts in June 2024 for facilitating sexual assaults on minors, rapes, and drug trafficking. This platform, renamed Cocoland, is known because it was where Dominique Pelicot recruited more than fifty men to rape his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, while she was unconscious.
Read more Traffic expects six million trips during the May 1st holiday weekend
The national cybercrime unit of the French National Gendarmerie will be in charge of the investigation. The High Commissioner for Childhood, Sarah el Haïry, warned two weeks ago about the reopening of this platform, which represents “a collective failure in the face of one of the most serious forms of violence: pedophilia.” “Coco remains active and accessible, without age verification and without moderation, with complete impunity,” the association Frente al Incesto denounced in a statement.
The website does not hide its origin and presents itself as “Coco’s chat to relax and disconnect,” “simple, free, and stress-free.” The operation is very similar. Registration is not required; the only data requested are name, sex, age, and region. There is no age verification mechanism, as minors are allowed in the chats. The code of conduct specifies that “moderation will be much stricter in the chats where they are admitted.”
The courts closed the website in June 2024, two months before the trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists began. This platform was a key element in the investigation, as for 10 years Dominique Pelicot recruited strangers there to rape his then-wife while she was unconscious. Fifty men, in addition to her husband, were identified and convicted, but it is estimated that there were nearly 80.
This platform began to be investigated in December 2023, despite the fact that the Pelicot case investigation started two years earlier. Coco was marketed as a libertine website and attracted all kinds of criminal profiles because it had no filter, protected anonymity, and users’ traces disappeared upon logging out.
The website was registered abroad. When ordering its closure, the Prosecutor’s Office detailed the criminal activity: between January 2021 and May 2024 there were more than 23,000 police procedures linked to this website nationwide and 480 victims involved. According to investigators, 70% of user conversations were about sex or drug sales.
Its founder, Isaac Steidl, was charged with eight crimes, including complicity in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of pedophilic images, corruption of minors, and criminal association. He denies the accusations. His lawyer, Julien Zanatta, has stated that his client has nothing to do with the reopening of Cocoland.
This Wednesday, the Commissioner for Childhood also denounced the activity of two other platforms where, according to her, adults come into contact with minors to obtain sexual photos or videos. “Everyone must be held accountable: men who send these images, the providers of these websites, and the publishers who allow no age verification or moderation must be pursued,” the Commissioner for Childhood reminded.
Feminist associations have denounced the impunity of other platforms where men exchange advice with others on how to drug their wives to rape them or exchange them with others. The association N’endors pas (Don’t fall asleep), founded by Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisèle Pelicot, has denounced the activity of these websites “which are accessible in France where it is very likely that French users participate and that there are victims.” The spokesperson for the Women’s Foundation, Laura Slimani, recalled: “Today sexual violence is organized online and the police and justice system must be able to confront this mass phenomenon.”
Read more The ‘Renoir’ that belonged to the Duchess of Alba returns to Spain thanks to a national buyer