France on Thursday charged the founder of an adult website used to commit sex crimes, including a Frenchman who recruited dozens of strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife, prosecutors said.
Isaac Steidl, founder and director of the website Coco.fr, was charged with crimes including running an online platform to facilitate an illegal transaction by an organized gang, following his arrest on Tuesday.
French authorities shut down the anonymous platform in June 2024. They say the site was used to commit numerous sexual crimes such as pedophilia and rape, as well as murder.
They also said he had allowed Dominique Pelicot to recruit dozens of strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife from 2011 to 2020.
Pelicot spoke to potential attackers in the website’s chat room called “an insu son”(without their knowledge). He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December after a trial that turned his now ex-wife Gisele Pelicot into a feminist icon.
Steidl, an Italian national, was placed under judicial supervision with the obligation to post bail of 100,000 euros and was prohibited from leaving the country, prosecutors said.
The 44-year-old man has been charged with complicity in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of images of child pornography, corruption of minors via the Internet, as well as aggravated money laundering, and administration of an online platform to facilitate an illegal transaction. . by an organized gang.
‘Den of predators’
Several of the crimes carry up to 10 years in prison.
The closure of the site came after numerous warnings from associations about the danger posed by the site, described as a “den of predators.” It was registered on the Channel Island of Guernsey.
The online chat site required no registration and allowed its users to remain anonymous.
Steidl had already been interrogated in Bulgaria in June. Three of his relatives, suspected of having participated in the administration of the platform or of having benefited from the crimes, were interviewed in France.
At the end of July 2024, two site moderators were arrested in France, according to a police source. AFP.
“In total, more than 23,000 acts committed through Coco have been reported,” said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.
Prosecutors have said more than €5 million linked to bank accounts in Hungary, Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands have been seized.
Fifty co-defendants (the men who responded to Dominique Pelicot’s online invitation) were also found guilty and received various sentences ranging from three to 15 years in the trial that ended in December.
The details of the crimes shocked France and the world, drawing renewed attention to male violence. The impact of the trial was magnified by Gisele Pelicot’s decision to waive her anonymity and opt for a public trial.
