Keystone / Christian Beutler
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into France’s largest prostitution website, “Meslibertines”, reportedly hosted in Switzerland and owned by a Swiss citizen living in Dubai, Radio France reports.
The website “Sexemodel”, recently renamed “Meslibertines”, is the main platform for escort and prostitution adverts in France, with an average of 430,000 visits per day, for more than 45,000 active prostitution ads.
The sites feature several hundred pages offering the services of underage girls. As a result, the French High Commissioner for Childhood contacted the public prosecutor to shut down the site, leading to the opening of an investigation, France Inter reported on ThursdayExternal link.
Swiss hub
The platform, which presents itself as a simple “ad hosting service”, rejects responsibility for “any contact or meeting resulting from placed advertisements” and claims to have a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal activities. Its Swiss headquarters complicates investigations and legal proceedings. A request for mutual legal assistance has been submitted by the French judicial authorities.
The site’s owner is reportedly a 47-year-old Swiss citizen, previously sentenced in France in 2011 to three years’ suspended imprisonment for aggravated pimping. At the time, Swiss authorities refused to execute the international arrest warrant, France Inter reports. The man also owns other similar platforms.
The head of the Central Office for the Suppression of Human Trafficking, cited by French public radio, denounced the website’s “extremely hypocritical stance”. “They know very well that among the thousands of advertisements, there are some for which they are guilty of a crime. But the French judicial authorities cannot act alone; cooperation with the Swiss authorities is necessary,” he said.
Owner reportedly lives in Dubai
The Swiss man behind this business reportedly lives in Dubai and earns over €20 million a year from the platform, to which many prostitutes in France subscribe.
The online newspaper Mediapart had already devoted a major investigation to him in 2025,External link claiming that he had been at the head of an international online prostitution empire for 20 years. He allegedly managed his affairs through front men and shell companies, most of which were registered in Switzerland and Cyprus.
Child prostitution is a major problem in France. According to NGOs, at least 20,000 children are affected, a figure that has increased twentyfold in ten years. The business is more lucrative and less dangerous than drugs. Pimps often pick up girls directly from shelters for troubled youngsters and then move them around regularly to cover their tracks.
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Translated from French, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
