Shortly after it was Pavel Durov, the founding father of Telegram arrested by police in France final summer season and accused of failing to forestall criminality on the app, a French legislation professor specializing in cybersecurity obtained on-line messages from a person named Isaac Steidl.
“I wish to communicate with you,” mentioned an e-mail signed by Mr. Steidl, who recognized himself because the founding father of the net chat website Coco. “My case is similar to Telegram’s and so are the allegations.”
Michel Sejan, the professor who shared copies of the messages with The New York Occasions, mentioned he didn’t know Mr. Steidl, had no real interest in serving to him and by no means responded. Nevertheless, he was aware of Coco, an internet site the place nameless customers can chat with out leaving a document of the dialog.
French legislation enforcement had linked the location to 1000’s of felony circumstances, together with recent process on Dominic Pellico and 50 different males, most of whom have been convicted of raping Mr. Pellicott’s now-ex-wife whereas she was closely drugged, and who testified they first met him on the chat website.
French authorities had already shut down the web site in June and messages to Mr Séjean advised Mr Steidl was involved he can be attacked subsequent.
Final week they did.
Like Mr. Durov earlier than him, Mr. Steidl was positioned below investigation on a number of criminal charges by authorities, primarily utilizing a 2023 legislation that turned France right into a testing floor for an aggressive new method to detain on-line platform bosses personally liable.
The new law permits authorities to prosecute individuals who function the platforms and knowingly allow the trade of unlawful content material, items or companies, whereas requiring customers to stay nameless or within the absence of retention of sure person knowledge.
Whereas some specialists warn that the brand new legislation stays comparatively untested within the courts, it has given French authorities a seemingly highly effective new device.
“The noose is being tightened across the directors of the sort of platform,” mentioned Nathalie Bouquet, a lawyer for the French chapter of Innocence in Hazard, a baby safety group that known as for Coco to be shut down.
Steidl, 44, didn’t reply to requests for an interview. However within the years main as much as his indictment, he took steps that made it troublesome for French legislation enforcement to succeed in him. He gave up his French citizenship, registered his web site overseas and moved to Bulgaria.
Final week, he was ordered to pay bail of 100,000 euros ($102,000) and was banned from leaving France with the duty to often register with an area police station.
Julien Zanatta, his lawyer, mentioned Mr. Steidl had voluntarily traveled to France to cooperate when known as upon by the authorities. Mr Steidl will “show his innocence” and is “appalled” by stories of wrongdoing linked to his platform, his lawyer mentioned.
“He was upset to seek out out what had been executed by folks abusing his website,” Mr Zanatta mentioned.
Coco was first registered in 2005. with a easy residence web page and an interesting Nineteen Nineties aesthetic, with cracked coconut. It advertises itself as a “pleasant” chat discussion board that does not require customers to create an account – they will entry it by offering simply their gender, age, zip code and nickname.
Customers may chat straight or be part of boards, and the location made cash by charging a small month-to-month price to entry extra options. Within the three months earlier than it was shut down, the location’s month-to-month visitors reached greater than 500,000 customers, based on SimilarWeb estimates.
Most significantly, no information of the nameless conversations are saved.
Through the years, the authorities repeatedly tied up the site to felony exercise and advocacy teams combating little one abuse and homophobia started to demand an increasing number of loudly that the authorities shut him down.
Marc Polman, president of a non-profit group towards cyberbullying in France – who was interviewed by police as a part of the investigation into Coco – mentioned that when he performed analysis for the chat website, posing as a feminine person, dozens of male customers contacted with him inside seconds of logging in, typically by making sexual feedback or asking for specific images.
French police and prosecutors say that from 2021 till 2024 the platform has been implicated in over 23,000 circumstances involving 480 alleged victims, together with allegations of kid sexual abuse, pimping, prostitution, rape, drug trafficking, fraud and homicide.
Throughout Pellicott’s trial, Mr Pellicott mentioned he met the opposite males on the web site in a non-public chat room known as “With out Her Information”. Many of the defendants denied ever seeing that exact chat room, however admitted they’d met Mr Pellicott on the location earlier than transferring on to different platforms.
A number of defendants at trial mentioned they got here to the web site searching for paid intercourse or to purchase and promote medicine. Christian Lescole, knowledgeable firefighter and long-time person of the web site, informed the court docket that it began as a spot to debate hobbies equivalent to chess or music.
“However through the years all of the predators and crooks began coming to Coco,” mentioned Mr Lescole, who was convicted of aggravated rape of Ms Pellicote.
At the same time as the web site grew in recognition, its founder remained within the shadows.
Mr. Steidl appears to reside off the web, however has a really low profile on-line. His Fb page is empty. His LinkedIn the web page is clean. It isn’t clear how a lot Mr. Steidl managed the web site on a day-to-day foundation. Two folks recognized as moderators of the location have been arrested in Julyhowever authorities didn’t specify their actual function.
Born in Vaucluse and raised in Vars, each areas of southeastern France, Mr. Steidl graduated from a pc science program at Toulon College of Engineering in 2003, the varsity’s head of communications mentioned.
Mr Steidl owned the area identify coco.fr via an organization known as Zenco, which was registered in Toulon in 2011. In 2022, in the course of the investigation previous the Pelicot trial, the workplace of the investigating choose contacted Zenco to request knowledge associated to the case. However he by no means received a response, based on a evaluate of the case by the choose.
Quickly after, Ms. Steidl started pulling the corporate, her web site and herself out of France.
Till October 2022 coco.fr was redirecting visitors to coco.ggbased on internet archives within the French Nationwide Library, indicating that it was registered in Guernsey, an island within the English Channel.
Then, in 2023, Zenco closed, based on public enterprise information. That 12 months, in April, Mr. Steidl renounced his French citizenship, authorities paperwork present. His lawyer says he’s an Italian citizen.
And sooner or later it moved to Bulgaria, the place an organization known as Vinci LTD was linked to the location in March 2024, based on info collected by Domaintools. Vinci is owned and operated by Mr. Steidl, based on Bulgarian company registers.
However in June, after an 18-month investigation spanning Europe, French authorities shut down the location. Two of the location’s servers have been seized in Germany, financial institution accounts have been frozen in a number of European nations, and police confiscated 5 million euros. French legislation enforcement officers questioned Mr. Steidl in Bulgaria, though no costs have been introduced towards him on the time.
Mr. Séjean, the skilled contacted by Mr. Steidl, mentioned that the French legislation of 2023 – and the creation in 2019. of a specialised nationwide cybercrime unit – have allowed French prosecutors to take a much less partial method in focusing on on-line platforms suspected of permitting criminality to flourish.
“Earlier than 2023 it could not be reached in a single fell swoop, it was damaged down simply in case,” mentioned Mr. Séjean, who teaches at Sorbonne University Paris North.
Ms Bucquet, a lawyer, mentioned the brand new legislation “makes policing a lot simpler” as a result of “the mere information of the unlawful nature of the content material justifies felony legal responsibility on the a part of the administrator”.
However some critics mentioned the appliance of the brand new crime to Mr. Steidl’s web site could also be overreaching, and that whereas the legislation permits prosecutors to deliver costs shortly, future convictions are unsure.
Alexandre Archambault, a lawyer with expertise in digital and cyber safety circumstances, famous that the primary judgment utilizing the brand new legislation, in Novemberwas towards the creator and administrator of a Telegram group that shared little one sexual abuse materials — not Telegram itself or its executives.
“Does this expanded interpretation of the offense adjust to European legislation?” Mr Archambault mentioned. “I doubt it.”
Mr Steidl’s lawyer mentioned his shopper had been unfairly singled out.
“There are often websites that deviate from their goal of committing crimes, and the folks chargeable for these websites are by no means prosecuted for complicity,” he mentioned.
Below French and European guidelines, platforms that host content material on-line can’t be held chargeable for what customers put up, and they don’t seem to be required to proactively monitor for unlawful content material.
However they need to even have procedures in place to permit folks to flag such content material for elimination and guarantee some stage of cooperation with authorities – which was not the case with Coco, based on French prosecutors, who mentioned it confirmed “a sure lack of moderation “.
For now, nonetheless, some advocacy teams say shutting down the web site is not sufficient.
“The day they shut down Coco, I emailed the police a listing of over 100 comparable web sites,” mentioned Mr. Polman, the nonprofit’s president. “It is like saying that closing down a drug-dealing place in Marseille solves the drug-trafficking downside in France.”
“Coco is the tree that hides the forest,” he mentioned.
Liz Alderman contributed stories from Paris, Michael H. Keller and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries from New York.
