French-Russian Telegram CEO Pavel Durov speaks on September 21, 2015 in San Francisco, California (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Steve JENNINGS)
Telegram boss Pavel Durov was indicted Wednesday evening by a Paris investigating judge who accused him of not taking action against the dissemination of criminal content on the messaging service, and was given a heavy judicial review order requiring him to remain in France, at the risk of provoking further angry reactions around the world.
Accompanied by his bodyguard and his assistant, the billionaire founder of the messaging service, of Russian origin and aged 39, was arrested on Saturday evening in the Bourget airport terminal (north of Paris) under a French search warrant, then taken into police custody.
Mr Durov was arriving from Baku and was due to spend at least the evening in Paris, where he had planned to have dinner.
According to a source close to the case, confirming Politico, Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai, both co-founders of Telegram in 2013, had been the subject of search warrants issued by the French justice system since March as part of a preliminary investigation.
– Complicity? –
Photo taken on November 8, 2021 in Moscow of the Telegram logo on a smartphone screen (AFP / Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)
The investigations have been entrusted to the Centre for the Fight against Digital Crime (C3N) and the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF), where the police custody has taken place since Saturday.
Early Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Durov was brought before an investigating judge who, according to a press release from Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, charged him after several hours of questioning with numerous offenses: “refusal to communicate information necessary for interceptions authorized by law”, complicity in offenses and crimes organized on the platform (drug trafficking, pedophilia, fraud and money laundering in an organized gang) and “provision of cryptology services aimed at ensuring confidentiality functions without a proper declaration”.
Released, Mr Durov is subject to strict judicial supervision, which includes the obligation to pay bail of 5 million euros and to report to the police station twice a week, and a ban on leaving French territory, according to Ms Beccuau’s press release.
In front of some media at the Paris judicial court, his lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski considered that “it is totally absurd to think that the manager of a social network could be involved in criminal acts which do not concern him, neither directly nor indirectly”.
In her press release, the Paris prosecutor explains that Telegram “appears in multiple files relating to different offences (pedophile crime, trafficking, online hatred)” and displays an “almost total lack of response from Telegram to judicial requisitions”, reported to the prosecution “in particular by the National Office for Minors (Ofmin)”.
According to a source close to the case, Telegram’s positive responses to French judicial requisitions in recent years can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
According to the prosecutor, “when consulted, other French investigation services and public prosecutors as well as various partners within Eurojust, particularly Belgian, shared the same observation”, triggering the opening of an investigation “into the possible criminal responsibility of the directors of this messaging service in the commission of these offences”.
A source close to the messaging service disputed this count, citing instead communication problems with the French authorities.
– “Intimidation” –
Photo taken in Ivry-sur-Seine (France), on August 26, 2024, from the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF) where the Franco-Russian boss of Telegram Pavel Durov is in police custody (AFP / STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)
The arrest of Dubai-based Pavel Durov has sparked strong reactions around the world. He has received support from Russian-based American whistleblower Edward Snowden and Elon Musk, the American boss of X.
In Moscow, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that “the accusations made are very serious and require equally solid evidence,” denouncing an “attempt at intimidation.”
President Emmanuel Macron assured Monday that the arrest of Pavel Durov was “in no way a political decision” but was “part of a judicial investigation”, adding that France was “committed to freedom of expression and communication”. The two men had lunch together in 2018.
The online messaging service that Pavel Durov launched in 2013 with his brother Nikolai, on which communications can be encrypted from end to end and whose headquarters are in Dubai, has positioned itself against the grain of American platforms, criticized for their commercial exploitation of personal data.
Telegram has pledged to never reveal any information about its users.
“Telegram complies with European laws (…), its moderation action is in line with the industry standard,” Telegram defended itself on its own channel on Sunday evening.
Pavel Durov settled in Dubai and obtained United Arab Emirates nationality and then, in August 2021, French nationality thanks to a rare procedure on which Paris remains very discreet.
His legal troubles are not limited: a source close to the case told AFP on Wednesday that a second investigation had just been opened targeting Mr. Durov for “serious violence” against one of his children in Paris, entrusted to the Office for Minors (Ofmin).
The acts were allegedly committed against a son of the Franco-Russian billionaire born in 2017.
The young boy now lives in Switzerland with his mother, who filed a complaint in that country in 2023, accusing her ex-partner of violence against one of her children, continued the source close to the case.
Mr Durov is worth an estimated $15.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
