Coco, renamed Cocoland, is once again in the sights of the authorities, who are investigating the reappearance of this platform closed by the courts in 2024. It is suspected of having served as a vector for sexual assaults – notably in the Pelicot affair – as well as homophobic ambushes.

Published on: 04/29/2026 - 08:28

It was simply renamed Cocoland. An investigation was opened on Tuesday April 28 by the gendarmerie cyber unit after the reappearance of the Coco site, closed in June 2024 after being implicated in the Pelicot affair but also for homophobic ambushes.

“The Paris public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the reopening of the website, entrusted to the national cyber unit of the national gendarmerie,” said the public prosecutor on Tuesday, requested by AFP.

The Face à l'inceste association 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 complete impunity", it deplores in a press release.

Read alsoHomophobic attacks and ambushes: the manager of the Coco site in police custody

Under the URL address "cocoland.info", "Cocoland", which presents itself as the "really free coconut chat", with coconuts in the background and a kitsch-toned design, was in fact accessible online on Tuesday afternoon, AFP noted.

“My client is completely unrelated to the opening of the website in question,” assured AFP Me Julien Zanatta, lawyer for the Italian Isaac Steidl, founder of the original Coco site.

Until this reappearance, investigations into the Coco platform were “well advanced”, according to a source close to the matter.

Its founder was indicted in January 2025 in Paris for complicity in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of child pornography images, corruption of minors via the Internet and criminal association.

“The proceedings against Isaac Steidl are as unjust as they are legally unfounded. The judicial information procedure will demonstrate this,” said his counsel, Me Zanatta.

The facts run from 2018 to 2024. The investigation into Coco was opened in December 2023.

Read alsoIncest, accused on the run, cold cases: the latest enigmas from the Mazan rape trial

“Human trafficking”

According to the Paris prosecutor's office, between January 1, 2021 and May 7, 2024, "no less than 23,051 legal proceedings linked to the Coco platform" had been opened. And 70 public prosecutor's offices "across the entire national territory" had transmitted procedures involving this site, to the detriment of 480 victims.

To enter coco.gg, which presented itself as a "chat site without registration", all you had to do was enter your gender, age, postal code and create a nickname, without any control.

This platform has been at the center of several criminal cases, including the resounding Mazan rape trial. For ten years, Dominique Pelicot (sentenced in December 2024 to 20 years in prison) bombarded his wife with anxiolytics to rape her and have her raped by dozens of men recruited via the site coco.fr.

As early as mid-April, High Commissioner for Children Sarah El Haïry warned of the resurgence of this website, after the revelations from Ouest-France on the appearance of the Cocoland site, with a new URL address. According to her, this “return of the Coco site” is a “collective failure in the face of one of the most serious forms of violence: child crime”.

“These sites are not innocuous places, they use all the loopholes, they look for prey, the prey are children” and facilitate “homophobic ambushes, rapes, drug trafficking and human trafficking,” recalled Sarah El Haïry on April 18 on RMC.

“There are procedures that have been launched, they will make it possible to close them, we will track them down, we will harass them, we will not give them a break,” promised Sarah El Haïry.

Other platforms are causing concern among associations. Like sites where men exchange advice on how to drug and rape their partners.

Also read Masculinists and “incels”: from online hatred of women to physical violence

These platforms being "accessible from France, and in view of recent cases like that of Gisèle Pelicot, it is highly probable that French users participate and that victims in France are concerned", alerted in a press release on Tuesday the Women's Foundation and M'endors pas, co-founded by Caroline Darian, the daughter of Gisèle Pelicot.

These organizations are asking French justice to open an investigation.

In March, CNN revealed the existence of these platforms and the extent of their use, in an investigation denouncing a “global rape academy”. The American channel notably mentioned the case of the pornographic site "Motherless", which hosts more than 20,000 videos in the "sleep" category, dedicated to women sleeping or drugged without their knowledge.

With AFP

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