Judicial investigation opened on the dating site coco.gg, implicated in homophobic attacks and ambushes

More than 23,000 acts have been reported as having been committed through this platform, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Three days after the controversial dating site was shut down, a judicial investigation was opened into the coco.gg platform, which was implicated in homophobic attacks and ambushes, announced the Paris public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, on Friday, June 28. The financial and cyber sections of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco), already in charge of the preliminary investigation opened in December, remain seized of the investigations. More than 23,000 acts have been reported as having been committed through coco.gg, the prosecutor said.

The judicial information relates in particular to the offense of “providing an online platform to enable an illicit transaction by an organized group” and to the laundering of the sums withdrawn from it, indicates the magistrate, specifying that bank accounts have frozen in Hungary, Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands and more than 5 million euros were seized.

A 44-year-old Italian man suspected of being the site’s administrator was questioned by magistrates in Bulgaria, the prosecutor said. Three of his relatives, “suspected of having played an active role in the administration of the platform or profited from the offenses”were heard in France and left free at the end of their hearing.

Investigators also collected testimonies from representatives of the associations Point de contact, Innocence en danger and Agir contre la prostitution des enfants et les violence sexuelles, who were calling for the site to be closed. “Coco.gg has been known for many years as a facilitator of the commission of various offenses, including acts of child crime, pimping, prostitution, rape, sale of drugs, ambush, and even homicide”recalled the Paris prosecutor in a previous press release. Since the opening of the preliminary investigation, Junalco has centralized the procedures of 71 public prosecutors’ offices, to the detriment of more than 480 victims.