{"id":217704,"date":"2025-01-17T16:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T16:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/france-wants-to-prosecute-the-founder-of-chat-site-linked-to-pelicot-rapes\/"},"modified":"2025-01-17T16:18:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T16:18:06","slug":"france-wants-to-prosecute-the-founder-of-chat-site-linked-to-pelicot-rapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/france-wants-to-prosecute-the-founder-of-chat-site-linked-to-pelicot-rapes\/","title":{"rendered":"France Wants to Prosecute the Founder of Chat Site Linked to Pelicot Rapes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"France<\/div>


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Shortly after Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested<\/a> by the police in France last summer and charged with failing to prevent illicit activity on the app, a French law professor specializing in cybersecurity got online messages from a man named Isaac Steidl.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to talk with you,\u201d said an email signed by Mr. Steidl, who introduced himself as the founder of the online chat site Coco. \u201cMy case is very similar to Telegram\u2019s, and so are the charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michel S\u00e9jean, the professor, who shared copies of the messages with The New York Times, said he didn\u2019t know Mr. Steidl, had no interest in helping him, and never responded. He was, however, familiar with Coco \u2014 a website where anonymous users could chat without leaving records of the conversation.<\/p>\n

French law enforcement had tied the site to thousands of criminal cases, including the recent trial<\/a> of Dominique Pelicot<\/a> and 50 other men, most of whom were convicted of raping Mr. Pelicot\u2019s now ex-wife while she was heavily sedated, and who testified that they had first met him on the chat site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n