The authorities are investigating the reappearance, in the form of the Cocoland site, of the Coco chat. Cited in the Pelicot trial as well as in numerous cases of homophobic ambushes, the Coco chat had been closed by the judiciary in 2024.
“The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the reopening of the website, entrusted to the national cyber unit of the Gendarmerie Nationale.” The public prosecutor’s office confirmed this Tuesday, April 28, to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that it is examining the reappearance of the Coco chat, closed in 2024 after being accused of having facilitated the commission of sexual assaults, notably in the Pelicot case, and of homophobic ambushes.
In mid-April, the High Commissioner for Childhood, Sarah El Haïry, had warned about the resurgence of this website, following revelations by Ouest France about the appearance of the Cocoland site, with a new URL. A “return of the Coco site” that she described as a “slap” and as a “collective failure in the face of one of the gravest violences: pedocriminality.” “There are procedures under way that will allow us to close them down, we will track them down, we will harass them, we will not give them a moment’s rest,” El Haïry had promised. Invited to Apolline Matin on RMC this Wednesday, the High Commissioner for Childhood also announced the reporting of two other websites, Chaat.fr and Legarcon.net, suspected of bringing pedocriminals into contact, noting that a third platform, Chatiw, was also in the sights of the authorities.
The “truly free Coco chat”
Following the announcement of the new investigation into Cocoland, the organization Face à l’inceste welcomed “a step forward,” while denouncing “the insufficiency of the public response”: “Despite the opening of an investigation, the site remains active, accessible, without age verification, without moderation, with impunity,” they lamented in a statement. Under the URL “cocoland.info,” Cocoland is indeed accessible, presenting itself as the “truly free Coco chat” and borrowing the codes of the old site, notably its kitschy design with coconuts on the background wallpaper.
“My client is completely unrelated to the opening of the website in question,” Julien Zanatta, the lawyer for the Italian Isaac Steidl, founder of the Coco site, assured AFP, while continuing to assert that “the prosecutions directed against Mr. Steidl are as unjust as they are legally unfounded.” The man has been placed under formal investigation in January 2025 in Paris, notably for complicity in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of child-pornographic images, corruption of a minor via the Internet, and criminal association.
Until this reappearance, investigations into the Coco platform, closed by the judiciary in 2024, were “well advanced,” according to a source close to the case cited by AFP. The inquiry had been opened in December 2023 for acts spanning 2018 to 2024. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, between January 2021 and May 2024, “no fewer than 23,051 judicial procedures in connection with the Coco platform” had been opened. Around 70 prosecutor’s offices “across the national territory” had, moreover, forwarded procedures involving this site, to the detriment of 480 victims. The Coco chat was notably at the center of the high-profile Mazan rape trial: for ten years, Dominique Pelicot, sentenced to 20 years in prison, raped his wife Gisèle with dozens of men recruited via coco.fr.
