INVESTIGATION. Pedophilia, prostitution, ambush… “We can no longer leave this lawless zone”, calls out a victim of the Coco site

Coco.gg is associated with numerous sordid affairs, the latest of which is that of the fatal attack on young Philippe in Grande-Synthe. However, almost 20 years after its launch, it has never really been worried. Our reporter tested the ease of the mechanism.

For five days, our reporter became one of the 850,000 monthly visitors to the Coco site. No moderation or prior registration. The ban on minors is not respected there. Our reporter therefore became CRICA18, a 15-year-old minor from Seine-et-Marne. In five days, CRICA18 received around fifty photos and webcam videos of men masturbating, incitements to prostitution and seven proposals for physical encounters with adults. Again on Sunday, Pierre, a 59-year-old consultant living in Melun, demanded before meeting us, to see us, to speak to us via the Snapchat application.

However, almost 20 years after its launch, the Coco site has never really been worried. The manager of this online chat is a 44-year-old French engineer from Var, Isaac Steidl, according to the company register. His last company, Zenco, was liquidated last summer. But regarding Coco.gg, the last known turnover reached 680,000 euros. And since then, the site has doubled its traffic. Trying to contact Isaac Steidl and a former associate by telephone, we quickly understood that franceinfo was not welcome.

Regular infiltrations by the gendarmes

In addition to pedophilia, prostitution or rape cases, the site is often involved in ambush cases. The police regularly intervene in this type of case. Eight days ago, the Doubs gendarmerie arrested two teenagers aged 16 and 17, in the parking lot of a supermarket in Besançon. They were about to rob a Coco user. This one, interested in the prostitution offered on this site, was not his first ambush. As Lieutenant-Colonel Damien Mathieu recounts: “The person went to the meeting place, in a parking lot a little away from a residential areahe says. And at that moment, he was attacked by an individual who came out of the woods with some kind of hammer.” It is “villainous violence”with a view to “rob the victim of their phone, their means of payment or even their vehicle”, alerts the officer. For him, it’s a site “very dangerous”.

“It is a vector of communication that should really be avoided and we do not hesitate to, when we can, arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Damien Mathieu

at franceinfo

In fact, the Coco.gg site is well known to the gendarmerie. Specialized agents are authorized to go on the chat under a pseudonym, to track down child pornography and online prostitution. A judicial source also confirms to us that drug and arms trafficking has been reported on this site, whose messages are deleted after a few hours.

The legal void, “an urban legend”

However, the closure of Coco.gg is not on the agenda. If the perpetrators of misdemeanors, or even crimes, who use it can be prosecuted, the site continues to generate money today, particularly with its so-called “Premium” subscriptions. In recent years, to keep out of reach, Coco.fr became Coco.gg, a domain name registered in Guernsey, a British island but, according to our information, these are Belgian servers, in the European Union, who host Coco.

“Legally, closing them is complicatedexplains a cyber police officer from the Ministry of the Interior, they are not hosted in France. They don’t publish content.” “There are ways to take action against this type of site,” replies the lawyer specializing in internet law, Alexandre Archambault. “It’s an urban legend, there is no legal loophole on the internet”the lawyer gets angry.

“We can absolutely intervene, as long as you have an activity that operates from the European Union, which seems to be the case”

Alexandre Archambault, lawyer specializing in internet law

franceinfo

He cites in particular the “French law on digital trust” and the DSA (the Digital Services Act), adopted last summer by the European Union. In the meantime, he deplores: “If there is no legal procedure, technical intermediaries cannot act to monitor what is happening online. This was again reminded very recently by a judgment of the Court of Cassation on March 27.”

Call for site closure

Caroline Darian is the daughter of Dominique, a man who, for 10 years, drugged and had the young woman’s mother raped by dozens of Coco users. “In the matter which concerns my father and my mothershe relates, which allowed my father to come into contact with all of these sexual derangements and predators – more than 80 individuals – this is the Coco site. She describes the existence on the site of “living rooms” to discuss specific subjects, each more controversial than the other. Among these salons, the one that concerned his mother was called “Without him knowing”. “We find in chats certain comments which concretely explain how to rape a woman without her knowledge, with medication, explains Caroline Darian. This site is the platform that allowed more than 80 individuals to get in touch and benefit from this sordid protocol.”

Caroline Darian does not understand why the site is not better monitored despite the increase in cases. A site which, according to her, “accelerates, in any case optimizes, the connection between predators and predators : What are the modalities that have been put in place since the release of all these cases? ? Noneshe gets angry. Legislators should take action, starting with the Minister of Justice. Today, in the era in which we live, I think that we can no longer leave this area of ​​lawlessness. What are we waiting for ?”

“There is no moderation. The owner(s) of this site are perfectly aware of this. They are playing with a form of Internet freedom because today, it is absolutely not legislated.”

Caroline Darian, collateral victim of Coco and president of the “M’dors pas” association

at franceinfo

How long before Caroline Darian’s call for the closure of the Coco site is acted upon? A closure whose effectiveness remains to be proven as the sites rise so quickly from their ashes. One piece of data could still speed up the procedure: Coco.gg does not respect one of its legal obligations, to transmit to the courts the technical data – the IP addresses – of the suspects. This constitutes a failure which exposes, but also suits, the most dangerous users of Coco.