French prosecutors on Wednesday formally charged CEO Paul Dourav with facilitating a series of criminal activities on the popular messaging platform and opened a formal investigation. after his arrest saturday
Russian-born Durov, who is also a French citizen, was charged with complicity in the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as well as facilitating organized crime, illegal operations, drug trafficking and fraud.
There was also a fool is charged with “refusal to hand over, at the request of the competent authorities, information or documents necessary to conduct and carry out interceptions authorized by law,” according to the English translation of the press release.
The 39-year-old man was detained at Le Bourget airport north of Paris on Saturday at 8pm local time after disembarking from a private jet. To avoid pretrial detention, Durov was ordered to pay 5 million euros in bail, but he is prohibited from leaving the country and must report to the authorities twice a week.
The arrest is related to a legal investigation against an unnamed person that was launched in France on July 8, 2024, primarily due to Telegram’s lax moderation policy, which allowed extremist and malicious activities to thrive on the platform. A preliminary investigation reportedly began in February 2024.
“Telegram’s almost complete lack of response to judicial inquiries has been brought to the attention of the cybercrime unit (J3) of JUNALCO (National Jurisdiction for Combating Organized Crime at the Paris Prosecutor’s Office), in particular OFMIN (National Office for Juvenile Affairs),” said the Paris prosecutor. Lor Bequou.
“Following consultations, other French investigative services and prosecutors, as well as various partners within Eurojust, especially the Belgian ones, shared the same observations. This has prompted JUNALCO to initiate an investigation into the possible criminal responsibility of the managers of this messaging service in the commission of these offences.”
Among other charges against Durov –
- Supply of cryptographic services designed to ensure privacy without a declaration of conformity
- Supply and import of cryptographic means that do not exclusively provide authentication or integrity functions without prior declaration
The development marks one of the rare times a company’s top management has been held accountable for what users post on the massive platform, which has more than 950 million monthly active users. Durov was previously the CEO of the Russian social media platform Vkontakte, which he founded in 2006. Telegram was launched in 2013.
Following Durov’s arrest, Telegram said in a statement on X that it had “nothing to hide,” adding that it was “absurd to claim that the platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of this platform.” The company also claims that it is regular publishes reports thousands of groups and channels related to child abuse are banned from the messaging service.
It should also be noted that the site’s terms of use specifically state that it does not handle requests related to illegal content shared in Telegram chats and group chats.
Politico since then reported that French authorities issued arrest warrants for Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and his co-founder brother Nikolai in March 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Durov’s arrest was not a political decision but part of an independent investigation.
The Wall Street Journal follows revealed On Wednesday, Durova’s iPhone was hacked by French spies during a joint operation with the United Arab Emirates in 2017 in a previously unknown operation codenamed Purple Music, according to people familiar with the matter.
“French security services were deeply concerned about Islamic State’s use of Telegram to recruit operatives and plan attacks,” it said.
