US and French law enforcement have seized two prominent deepfake pornography websites and arrested their alleged operators in coordinated international enforcement actions. The US Departments of Justice and Homeland Security seized CFake.com and SOCFake.com under the TAKE IT DOWN Act, federal legislation signed in May 2025 that criminalizes publication of nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated forgeries. The law allows platforms 48 hours to remove flagged content and imposes penalties up to two years imprisonment.
Seizure warrants revealed the sites hosted digitally forged images depicting politicians, royalty, journalists, athletes, and entertainers, organized under disturbing categories including rape, forced acts, and degradation. Following a US tip to Paris prosecutors, French investigators identified a suspect in Nice and documented the scale of CFake.com's operations. The site contained roughly 300,000 images and 7,000 videos depicting 14,000 individuals, attracting four million monthly views from 200,000 user accounts.
French authorities arrested an IT professional with no prior criminal record, seizing approximately $64,000 in Ether cryptocurrency from his residence, representing advertising revenue from the site. The suspect faces trial on July 7 in Paris on charges of conducting illicit online transactions and providing nonconsensual sexual deepfakes. Combined, these charges carry potential penalties of up to ten years imprisonment and €575,000 ($667,000) in fines.
These actions follow other recent prosecutions under the new law. In April, Ohio resident James Strahler II pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, producing child sexual abuse material, and publishing digital forgeries after creating over 700 images and sending deepfake material to at least six adult women. In May, the DOJ arrested Cornelius Shannon and Arturo Hernandez for publishing thousands of deepfake images of both prominent and private individuals.
Security experts warn that despite these enforcement successes, nonconsensual deepfake production continues to accelerate. Deepfake incidents jumped 257% in 2024, with girls representing 94% of victims in reported AI-generated child sexual abuse cases. Victims should preserve evidence including screenshots, URLs, and communications before filing takedown requests. Experts recommend limiting high-resolution facial images posted publicly, as these provide the source material for deepfake generation tools.
Source: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/ai/2026/06/deepfake-posting-sites-depicting-famous-women-taken-down-by-feds