Ambushes, hyperviolent attacks, the coco site, cited in the attacks on thousands of people on French territory, was closed. Limousin was not spared. Investigators agreed to answer our questions to help us understand how this perfectly orchestrated violence worked.
“This site was closed by the General Directorate of Customs and Excise and the National Gendarmerie.” If you try to connect to the “Coco.gg” site, this is the message that appears. After twenty years of existence, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced, this Tuesday, June 25, the closure of the “first free chat site”as he defined himself, cited in the attacks on thousands of people on French territory.
Four people, including the founder of the site, were arrested and taken into police custody.
In Haute-Vienne alone, the National Police have counted several dozen victims in recent years. “A number to which must be added a dark figure of attacks which will never be known, killed out of shame or fear of family reprisals”specifies the head of the crime division of the Limoges National Police.
The latest case dates back to last April. Three minors and an adult were arrested in an apartment in downtown Limoges. The victim, a salesman passing through Limoges, was thinking of going there to have a paid sexual relationship with a sixteen-year-old girl he met on this famous Coco site.
Trapped, he found himself immobilized by a taser and severely beaten by his attackers. “Sometimes there is a girl, because the attackers need a female voice to lure the victim. On the other hand,those who attack are always young men”, explains the policeman.
The National Police then specified that “l’interface does not keep track of messages and facilitates these violent excesses, sometimes of a homophobic nature.”
A year ago, Julien* recounted his ordeal to our colleagues at Populaire du Center. While he thought he would meet a man with whom he had been chatting for several days on the application, he was the victim of an ambush in the Vigenal district.
Four hooded and gloved guys jump on me. They wrapped me in adhesive tape, put a garbage bag over my head, dicked me. I was choking. Others beat me to destroy me.
Julien*, victim of a homophobic ambushat the Popular Center
According to the National Police, these attacks are “teams with drawers”: “You can have three individuals on a first event. On a second event, a friend can take the place of another. They pass the word around because when it works, it can pay off big…”
These ambushes represent an opportunity to make easy money. “Often what is taken is the telephone. We also got the car after having taken the key. Otherwise in principle, the bank card with the code. The attackers go to an ATM and withdraw money, either because they are with the victim or without the victim All scenarios are possible.
Hyperviolent attacks that can lead to murder. In November 2022, the lifeless body of a sixty-year-old was found in the ditch of a departmental road in Creuse. Arrested for a violent robbery in Allier, two young men confessed to the murder while in police custody. One of them, barely an adult, went alone to the victim’s family home in Saint-Barbant in the north of Haute-Vienne. The young man told investigators that he had strangled the pensioner before fleeing in the victim’s vehicle with his accomplice and abandoning the body near the RN145.
In Limoges, Coco is systematically cited in ambush cases. Anonymity reigned supreme there. On Coco, no need to create an account: a simple nickname and age are enough. “As soon as you arrived with a semblance of a feminine attribute, like a first name, you were immediately assailed by thirty or forty people who sent you pornographic photos.” explains Gilles Etienne, head of the detachment of the Limoges Anti-Cybercrime Office. “So there was really no moderation of the site and its content.”
Anyone could log in without really leaving a trace.
Gilles Etienne, police officer specializing in cybercrime
For Gilles Etienne, the host is responsible for the content he conveys: “We do not have the right to send hateful messages, nor to send pornographic photos to children, etc. There are rules to respect in France. So a site cannot afford to to say: “you do what you want, it’s your responsibility.”
Today, he calls on users of these dating sites to be careful: “We can’t prohibit people from flirting on the Internet, but you always have to be careful, because you never know if you might meet. You have to be careful about the time of the meeting, the place of meeting …”
“This is the perverse effect of social networks: we have the impression that everyone is doing it and therefore that we are not at risk… except that it is not true” laments the police officer.
