French prosecutors on Wednesday formally charged Telegram CEO Pavel Durov with facilitating a litany of criminal activity on the popular messaging platform was also barred from leaving the country and placed him under formal investigation following his arrest near Paris Saturday.
Durov, Russian-born who is also a French citizen, has been charged with being complicit in the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) as well as enabling organized crime, illicit transactions, drug trafficking, fraud and barred from leaving the country.
Durov has also been charged with a “refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law,” according to an English translation of the press release.
His indictment was a rare move by legal authorities to hold a top technology executive personally liable for the behavior of users on a major messaging platform, escalating the debate over the role of tech companies in online speech, privacy and security and the limits of their responsibility.
Mr. Durov, 39, was detained by the French authorities on Saturday after a flight from Azerbaijan. He was charged on Wednesday with complicity in managing an online platform to enable illegal transactions by an organized group, which could lead to a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that Mr. Durov had been ordered to pay bail of 5 million euros, or about $5.5 million. He was released from custody but must check in at a police station twice a week.
The arrest is in connection with a judicial investigation into an anonymous individual that was opened in France on July 8, 2024, essentially determined by Telegram’s lax moderation policies that have allowed extremist and malicious activity to thrive on the platform. A preliminary probe is said to have started in February 2024.
“The almost total lack of response from Telegram to judicial requisitions was brought to the consideration of the cybercrime fighting section (J3) of JUNALCO (National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime, within the Paris prosecutor’s office), in particular by OFMIN (National Office for Minors),” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
“At the point when counseled, other French investigative services and public prosecutors as well as different accomplices inside Eurojust, especially Belgian ones, had a similar perception. This drove JUNALCO to open an an investigation into the possible criminal liability of the managers of this messaging service in the commission of these offenses.”
Other charges against Durov are included.
- Supply of cryptographic services designed to ensure confidentiality without a declaration of conformity
- Supply and import of a cryptographic means that does not exclusively ensure authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration
The development marks one of the rare instances where a company’s top executive has been held liable for what users’ post on a major platform that has more than 950 million monthly active users. Durove was previously the CEO of the Russian social media platform Vkontakte which he had founded in 2006. Telegram was subsequently launched in 2013.
Following Durov’s arrest, Telegram said in a statement on X that he has “nothing to hide,” adding “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owners are responsible for abuse of that platform.” The company also claims it regularly publishes reports of thousands of groups and channels related to child abuse being banned on the messaging service.
It’s also worth noting that the site’s terms of service specifically state that it does not process any requests related to illegal content shared on Telegram chats and group chats.
Politico has since announced that French authorities issued arrest warrants forfor Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and his co-founder brother Nikolai in March 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that Durov’s arrest was certainly not a political choice yet part of a free investigation.
The Wall Street Journal further revealed Wednesday that Durov’s iPhone was hacked by French government operatives in a joint activity with the United Arab Emirates in 2017 as a part of a previously unknown operation codenamed Purple Music, refering to individuals familiar with the matter.
The report said. “French security officials were acutely concerned about Islamic State’s use of Telegram to recruit operatives and plan attacks.”
