“These seizures stopped a website that trafficked in humiliation, exploitation, and the violation of personal privacy on a massive scale,” said Frazer in a statement.
CFAKE.com and SOCFAKE.com: scope and content
Federal authorities seized multiple internet domains this week, including CFAKE.com and SOCFAKE.com, accusing them of publishing thousands of AI- or digitally-altered images and videos of nude women. According to a Department of Justice release summarizing a probable cause affidavit and search warrants, the sites specialized in digital forgeries “made to appear to be sexual images of famous women, including politicians, first ladies of multiple countries, royalty, journalists, television presenters, athletes, entertainers, and others” either nude or engaged in sexual activity.
The Department of Justice said the platforms also organized content by abusive topics; users could browse categories labeled “rape,” “forced,” and “degradation,” language taken directly from the affidavit description cited by the DOJ. CyberScoop has not viewed the court documents.
International coordination: U.S., France, and Italy
U.S. authorities said they worked in coordination with law enforcement in France and Italy. Robert Fraiser, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, said the U.S. response was triggered after Italian Polizia de Stato notified investigators about the website, and that a parallel investigation run by the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office led to an arrest and seizures in France.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division is leading the federal probe, in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s office for New Jersey. The Department of Justice identified this operation as one of the largest seizures since the TAKE IT DOWN Act went into effect.
French arrest and seized cryptocurrency: Cyrille B. in Nice
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office identified an arrested suspect as Cyrille B., a 47-year-old French national accused of being an administrator for CFAKE. A search of his home in Nice reportedly uncovered computer equipment tied to the site and slightly more than $48,000 in Ethereum, which prosecutors said derived from the site’s advertising.
French investigators told authorities they had identified roughly 300,000 images and 7,000 videos depicting about 14,000 individuals from different countries. The office reported the site had about 200,000 user accounts, drew roughly 4 million views per month, and uploaded about 50 new pieces of content every day. Cyrille B. had no prior criminal record, and prosecutors said he will go to trial on July 7; the charges carry potential penalties of up to seven years in prison and a fine of €500,000.
Legal authority: the TAKE IT DOWN Act and bipartisan momentum
DOJ said the domains were seized under the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a law passed last year that gives federal authorities the ability to criminally prosecute creators and distributors of deepfake porn. The source material notes that the law represented a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, with support from both Democrats and Republicans who said constituents demanded tougher laws to curb the nonconsensual use of AI to create sexual images.
The government called this seizure one of the largest enforcement actions since the TAKE IT DOWN Act became effective, signaling a test case for how the statute will be used against operators who distribute nonconsensual synthetic sexual content across borders and through cryptocurrency-fueled monetization.
What this means for technologists, prosecutors, and victims
- Technologists and security teams: Expect investigators to follow infrastructure and financial traces across jurisdictions. The French case tied advertising revenue to cryptocurrency (Ethereum), and law enforcement used cross-border cooperation to identify server assets and accounts tied to site administration.
- Prosecutors and law enforcement: The TAKE IT DOWN Act is now an operational tool. The combined U.S., French, and Italian effort shows prosecutors may pair domestic seizure authority with foreign criminal procedures and asset seizures to dismantle platforms and pursue administrators.
- Victims and civil-rights advocates: Authorities framed the action as stopping “humiliation, exploitation, and the violation of personal privacy on a massive scale.” The scale metrics reported by French prosecutors — hundreds of thousands of images and thousands of videos — underline the volume of allegedly nonconsensual material persistently available online and the potential enduring harm to those depicted.
The enforcement action closes one chapter — disabling CFAKE.com and SOCFAKE.com and arresting an alleged administrator — but it also lays bare the operational model prosecutors described: international hosting and infrastructure, advertising-paid monetization converted to cryptocurrency, and rapid, high-volume uploads of synthetic sexual content. The government has pointed to criminal remedies under the TAKE IT DOWN Act and foreign prosecutions; the July 7 trial date for Cyrille B. will test how prosecutors translate seized evidence into convictions and penalties under the law.
Source: CyberScoop
