The Italian Isaac Steidl, founder and manager of the Coco website accused of having been involved in the commission of numerous sexual crimes, notably in the Mazan rape case, was indicted on Thursday January 9 in Paris.
Six months after the judicial closure of this platform, Isaac Steidl was indicted by an investigating judge of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco) and placed under judicial supervision with the obligation to pay a bail of €100,000 and a ban on leaving the national territory.
Isaac Steidl was indicted for complicity in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of child pornography images, corruption of a minor via the Internet, but also for the offenses of aggravated pimping, criminal conspiracy, aggravated money laundering, and again for the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction by an organized group. The facts run from 2018 to 2024.
Several of these offenses carry a penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment, and drug trafficking or complicity carries a fine of up to 7.5 million euros.
Investigation started in 2023
Isaac Steidl was questioned in June in Bulgaria, and bank accounts had “been frozen in Hungary, Lithuania, Germany, Netherlands. More than five million euros were seized »Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced at the time. Investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office (Onaf) and UNCyber as well as a magistrate from the Paris public prosecutor’s office attended his hearing as observers.
Three of his relatives, suspected of having “exercised an active role in the administration of the platform or benefited from the offenses”had also been questioned in France and left free following their interrogation.
Then at the end of July 2024, two moderators of the site were arrested in Oignies (Pas-de-Calais) and Limoges, according to a police source.
The preliminary investigation began in December 2023 with, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office, “centralization of the procedures of 71 public prosecutors, to the detriment of more than 480 victims”. “In total, more than 23,000 acts were denounced as having been committed through “Coco” »Laure Beccuau said.
To enter the site, which presented itself as a “chat site without registration”all you had to do was enter your age, postal code and create a nickname, without any control. Registered on the Channel Island of Guernsey, it had a 1980s design reminiscent of the Minitel.
