The courts shut down a platform selling intimate content stolen from more than 17,000 women worldwide.

A Franco-American judicial operation has led to the closure of the NudeLeaksTeens platform, which offered the online sale of intimate content stolen from more than 17,000 women, including minors, worldwide, the Paris prosecutor's office announced Wednesday.

Two brothers, aged 21 and 25, suspected of being "the alleged administrators", were arrested Tuesday in northern France, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

On three different websites, "the platform offered for sale packs of stolen intimate content, from various sources": computer hacking of social network accounts, "grooming" (a trap set online by an adult for a minor), "revenge porn" (non-consensual distribution of intimate images for revenge).

Some of the women are minors and of various nationalities.

"Users of the site were encouraged, in exchange for virtual currency rewards, to provide identifying information for each victim, listed individually under their real name, indexed by age, place of residence, profession and level of 'beauty' rated out of 10," the Paris prosecutor's office stated.

NudeLeaksTeens means "leak of intimate images of teenage girls" in English.

At the homes of the two brothers arrested, French investigators seized some 700,000 euros worth of virtual currency including Bitcoin, Litecoin, USDT and Ethereum, the Paris prosecutor's office said.

"People who are victims of the non-consensual dissemination of intimate content on the NudeLeaksTeens platform, whether French or foreign, are invited to contact the National Cyber Unit at [email protected]," said the Paris prosecutor.

In France, the investigation is being led by the cybercrime section of the Paris prosecutor's office and entrusted to the cyber unit of the national gendarmerie.

It includes the following offences: organized possession and distribution of pornographic images of a minor, money laundering, providing an online platform for illegal purposes, and invasion of privacy.