On a bed, a couple looks at a laptop, a peaceful image of ordinary digital use. The contrast serves as a sober illustration of a case involving online traces. Credits: moanpal / PxHere.
One hundred seventy-eight Coco users were arrested in France and overseas territories between May and June 2026, the gendarmerie announced. These people, aged 20 to 60, are suspected of distributing or sharing content of a pedocriminal nature. Other suspicions involve sexual offenses against minors. The operation extends the judicial shutdown of the site in June 2024.
A Nationwide Operation Coordinated By UNCyber
In its note published on July 8, 2026, Gendinfo presents this sequence as the second phase of the Coco case. This phase follows the dismantling of the platform. Investigators from the National Cyber Unit then worked to identify the main contributors. This unit is part of the National Judicial Police Unit.
According to Gendinfo, the investigations led investigators to analyze 185,853 photographs and 23,597 videos. The gendarmerie also says that 762 military personnel were mobilized, with 172 people taken into custody and six interviews of individuals under investigation. These figures should be read as investigative data: by themselves, they say nothing about the individual guilt of the people arrested.
New facts identified during the initial judicial investigation were reported to the Paris prosecutor’s office. It entrusted new investigations to UNCyber. The unit must report to the competent prosecutors according to the defendants’ place of residence.
Judicial Follow-Up Already Underway
At this stage, the gendarmerie reports seven custodial prison sentences and two suspended sentences. It also mentions 19 pretrial detentions, 19 placements under judicial supervision, and 22 summonses to appear in court. The investigations are ongoing.
This breakdown requires a strict distinction between judicial situations. A person arrested may have been questioned, taken into custody, charged, summoned, held in pretrial detention, or already convicted. The article therefore cannot present all 178 people as guilty, even if the official statement uses very definitive language.
Franceinfo, TF1 Info, BFMTV, Le Parisien, and Le HuffPost published consistent accounts of the operation. They attribute it to the gendarmerie or to UNCyber. TF1 Info and Le Parisien also detail the total of 207,197 media files analyzed. This figure adds together the volumes of photographs and videos reported by the gendarmerie.
Coco, From Shutdown To Digital Trace
Coco, also known through the Coco.fr or Coco.gg addresses, was presented as a French online dating service. Authorities accuse it of facilitating criminal activity. They point to the lack of identity verification when profiles were created and moderation deemed insufficient. Gendinfo also attributes this ease of return to the options left to banned users. They could rejoin the platform by paying a “fine” or through a “Premium” system.
The site was dismantled in June 2024. The investigation was led under the direction of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight Against Organized Crime in the Paris prosecutor’s office. UNCyber, the National Anti-Fraud Office, and the Ministry of the Interior’s Cyber Command were mobilized. Eurojust also provided support, with operations carried out in several European countries.
A judicial investigation was then opened on June 28, 2024 for running an online platform enabling illicit transactions and money laundering. It was in this context that investigators say they traced user profiles. The distinct facts identified were then forwarded to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The Cocoland Question Remains Open
Coco’s shutdown did not end the issue. In April 2026, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the reappearance of a service presented as its extension. This service appeared under the name Cocoland, according to information confirmed to HuffPost with AFP. This investigation was also assigned to the gendarmerie’s cyber unit.
High Commissioner for Children Sarah El Haïry had warned about this reappearance in spring 2026. The issue therefore goes beyond the fate of a domain name alone. It concerns the authorities’ ability to shut down a platform and exploit the traces left by its users. It also concerns the risk of seeing online predation spaces re-form elsewhere.
The Coco case thus fits into a longer timeline. The 2024 dismantling closed off a known access point. The 2026 arrests show that the judicial exploitation of the data can continue long after. The Cocoland chapter, meanwhile, is a reminder that online protection of minors also depends on monitoring reappearances. It also depends on services that reproduce the same flaws.