Swiss-based escort platform faces French investigation

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into one of the country’s biggest prostitution advertising platforms, after reports that listings include underage girls. The Paris prosecutor’s office is examining the website formerly known as “Sexemodel”, recently renamed “Meslibertines”.

Radio France reports that the platform receives an average of 430,000 visits a day and carries more than 45,000 active advertisements. French authorities became concerned after several hundred pages allegedly offered the services of underage girls. France’s High Commissioner for Childhood contacted prosecutors and called for the site to be shut down.

The investigation brings a Swiss connection into sharp focus. The platform is reportedly hosted in Switzerland and owned by a Swiss national who lives in Dubai. French judicial authorities have submitted a request for mutual legal assistance to Switzerland.

The case raises immediate questions about how online advertising businesses detect illegal content, preserve evidence and respond to law enforcement requests. It also places Switzerland’s role as a corporate and digital hub under scrutiny, even though the suspected exploitation and most of the advertised activity concern France.

The platform says it merely hosts advertisements, a position French anti-trafficking officials have sharply criticised. Its terms reportedly deny responsibility for any contact or meeting resulting from an advertisement and state that the company has a “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal activity.

That defence will be tested by the investigation. France’s Central Office for the Suppression of Human Trafficking says the scale of the site makes it impossible to treat the listings as detached from their consequences. The office’s head, quoted by France Inter, accused the platform of an “extremely hypocritical stance”. He said the company knows that some advertisements amount to criminal conduct, while French investigators cannot act alone because the infrastructure is linked to Switzerland.

The distinction between a platform and an active participant is central to the case. Investigators are expected to examine how advertisements are approved, whether suspicious listings were reported, what records the company keeps and how it handles complaints. They may also seek information about payments, account holders and the people who placed the advertisements.

The source material does not establish criminal liability. That will be for prosecutors and courts to determine.

Switzerland’s legal assistance system now sits at the centre of the French inquiry. The reported headquarters and corporate links in Switzerland complicate a case involving a business owner who is said to reside in Dubai and operate through an international network.

According to France Inter, the owner is a 47-year-old Swiss citizen who was sentenced in France in 2011 to three years’ imprisonment, suspended, for aggravated pimping. French authorities previously issued an international arrest warrant, but Swiss authorities reportedly refused to execute it. The current investigation will test how much evidence can be obtained through formal cooperation and whether Swiss authorities identify grounds for their own proceedings.

The owner also reportedly controls other similar platforms. Mediapart wrote in 2025 that he had built an online prostitution empire over two decades, using intermediaries and shell companies registered mainly in Switzerland and Cyprus. Those claims remain part of earlier reporting and are not findings in the new French investigation.

For Switzerland, the case highlights the practical reach of mutual legal assistance. Investigators may need corporate records, server information, financial data and communications held across several jurisdictions. The speed and scope of that cooperation could determine whether prosecutors can move from suspicion to charges.

The reported business generates more than €20 million a year, according to French reporting, while vulnerable children remain at the heart of the allegations. Many prostitutes in France reportedly subscribe to the platform, giving it an unusually broad reach across the country’s online sex market.

French NGOs estimate that at least 20,000 children are affected by prostitution. They say the number has risen twentyfold in a decade. The source report describes a recruitment pattern in which pimps target girls in shelters for young people in difficulty and move them regularly to make detection harder.

Those figures provide the wider context for the prosecutors’ intervention. An online listing can appear detached from the physical exploitation behind it, yet advertisements can help buyers find victims, allow exploiters to move rapidly between cities and create a revenue stream for the operators who publish them.

The investigation is also likely to examine how minors reach the site and whether adults responsible for advertisements used false ages or identities. The presence of several hundred pages allegedly promoting underage girls does not by itself establish who created or maintained them. Prosecutors will need to identify the advertisers, trace payments and determine what the platform knew, and when it knew it.

The next test will be whether French and Swiss authorities can turn a cross-border investigation into enforceable action. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened the case, and France has requested mutual legal assistance from Switzerland. That request could involve company structures, financial flows, technical records and information about the platform’s operators.

The Swiss connection gives the inquiry a domestic dimension. A business incorporated or hosted in Switzerland can fall within Swiss regulatory and criminal procedures even when its customers, advertisers and alleged victims are abroad. The case also adds to recent scrutiny of trafficking networks linked to Switzerland, including a separate 2025 case involving alleged trafficking of Chinese sex workers.

Investigators will have to establish the platform’s knowledge, the roles of the people behind it and the responsibilities of any companies or intermediaries. They will also need to protect potential victims while preserving digital evidence that can be deleted or moved quickly.

No charges or convictions have been reported in the current inquiry. The allegations concern a platform, its ownership and the content of its listings. French prosecutors and Swiss authorities will now determine whether the available evidence supports further criminal proceedings.