France, April 29 -- Authorities say the French-language platform Coco has been linked to crimes including rape, murder and sexual abuse of children. The website, which was registered abroad, was shut down in June 2024.

The Paris public prosecutor's office told French news agency AFP it had opened an investigation into the website's reopening.

Now operating under the name Cocoland, the site was still accessible on Tuesday.

France's commissioner for children, Sarah el Hairy, raised the alarm in mid-April.

"The reopening of the Coco site is a real slap in the face to the promises of protection we've made," she told radio station RMC then.

Such websites "exploit every loophole - they seek out prey, and that prey is children," she sa...