On July 21, 2026, a cybercrime team from the Dutch national police walked into hosting companies in three cities and carried out servers used by one of the internet's larger free porn tube sites. The raids in Steenbergen, Rotterdam and Amsterdam were led by the Zeeland-West-Brabant public prosecutor's office, and the target was Motherless, a site that until recently counted tens of millions of visits a month, as reported by XBIZ, DutchNews.nl and AVN. No one was arrested. The investigation covers both the people who uploaded material and, unusually, the role of the site itself. For creators who spend their weeks filing takedowns against stolen content, this case is worth understanding, because it shows exactly where the pressure points of the adult internet now are.
What happened on July 21?
The confirmed facts, as reported by the outlets that covered the operation:
- Who acted: a cybercrime team of the Dutch national police, in raids led by the public prosecutor's office of Zeeland-West-Brabant.
- Where: hosting companies in Steenbergen, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
- What was taken: servers owned or used by Motherless, per XBIZ.
- What is suspected: serious sexual offences, described by police as including child pornography and footage in which women, presumably drugged beforehand, are severely sexually abused.
- Who is being investigated: both the users who uploaded the material and the role of the site itself.
- What happens next: the seized data will be examined in several phases in the coming months, partly by specialists from Europol.
- Arrests: none, according to all three outlets.
Why servers, and why no arrests?
Because in a case like this the evidence is the infrastructure. Seizing servers gives investigators the upload logs, the account data and the moderation records that can show who put what online and what the operators knew, which is the difference between prosecuting individual users and prosecuting a platform. That analysis takes months, and Europol is joining it precisely because the material and the users cross borders. The site itself had already been offline since May, when its Dutch host, NFOrce Internet Services of Steenbergen, told the ownership that service was suspended pending an internal review, per AVN, in a month when Dutch broadcasters NOS and Nieuwsuur were publishing their reporting on the site. According to AVN, Motherless is owned by Kick Online Entertainment, an entity registered in Luxembourg. NFOrce is described by the sources as the hosting provider that suspended its client and opened a compliance review, not as a target of the investigation.
What does this have to do with subscription creators?
More than it looks, in three ways:
- Stolen content has a supply chain, and it can be cut. A tube site with tens of millions of monthly visits disappeared not because of a lawsuit but because a hosting provider pulled the plug. The same lever exists for the reposts of your own paid content, which is why takedown requests should go to hosts and registrars, not only to the site itself. The full playbook is in how stolen content spreads and what can be done.
- Non-consensual material is now the enforcement priority. The suspicion here is not that the site hosted porn, it is that it hosted material nobody consented to. That is the same principle behind the paperwork the platforms already demand from you, and behind proposals like the one we covered in the PROTECT Act and written consent.
- Verified platforms and free tubes are drifting apart. Every enforcement wave widens the gap between services that check identity, age and consent and services that never did. That is an argument for the subscription model, and a reason your own release forms and ID copies should be in order.
The second front: age checks, in two other countries
The Dutch criminal inquiry is not the only pressure on the site, and the three cases should not be confused. According to AVN, Motherless was fined nearly 1.1 million dollars by Ofcom over compliance issues connected to age verification duties in the United Kingdom, a matter entirely separate from the abuse investigation. And in early July a Texas district court ordered the domain registry Verisign to lock motherless.com over noncompliance with that state's age verification law, per XBIZ, which is a third, again separate, proceeding. Taken together they describe the machinery now bearing down on adult sites: criminal investigation in one country, a regulator's fine in another, and a court reaching the domain name in a third, the same regulatory wave we mapped in age verification and adult sites in 2026.
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Frequently asked questions
What happened to Motherless in July 2026?
On July 21, 2026 a Dutch national police cybercrime team raided hosting companies in Steenbergen, Rotterdam and Amsterdam and seized servers owned or used by the site, in an operation led by the Zeeland-West-Brabant public prosecutor's office, according to XBIZ, DutchNews.nl and AVN. The investigation concerns suspected serious sexual offences, and no arrests were made.
Is Motherless offline?
The site had already gone offline in May 2026, when its Dutch hosting provider NFOrce Internet Services suspended service pending an internal review, according to AVN, in the same period Dutch broadcasters were reporting on the site. Separately, a Texas court in early July ordered the domain registry to lock the domain over that state's age verification law, per XBIZ.
Has anyone been charged or convicted?
No. According to all the outlets that covered the raids, no arrests were made and the case is an ongoing investigation into suspected offences, looking both at users who uploaded material and at the role of the site. Nothing has been decided by a court.
What can creators do when their content is reposted on tube sites?
Send takedown requests not only to the site but to its hosting provider, its domain registrar and the search engines that index it, and keep records of your ownership. This case shows the hosting layer is where the real leverage sits: the site went offline when its host suspended service, before any court ruling.
Note. Facts as reported by XBIZ (July 22, 2026), DutchNews.nl and AVN (July 21, 2026), which cite Dutch police and the Zeeland-West-Brabant public prosecutor's office. This is an ongoing investigation into suspected offences: no arrests have been reported and no court has ruled. Ownership details and the Ofcom fine figure are reported by AVN. This article names no uploaders, employees or victims. FanChecked is an independent review platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any site mentioned.
