After spending four days in police custody, the founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, was officially investigated in France on Thursday for a variety of criminal offenses.
He was also released from custody on condition that he does not leave French territory during the investigation. Bail was set at 5 million euros (about $5.6 million) and he must report to a police station twice a week.
On Tuesday, the Paris criminal court in charge of the investigation published a list of charges that led to Durov’s arrest on August 24 after he disembarked from his private jet at France’s Le Bourget airport.
The main charges are that he ran a company involved in the storage and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), facilitating drug trafficking, and enabling organized fraud and other illegal transactions. He also faces charges related to registering Telegram’s cryptographic features, among other criminal charges.
In a statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed all the charges and said the investigation was moving forward. The fact that Durov is under official investigation means that he is officially suspected of what he is accused of.
In the French justice system, opening a formal investigation is a necessary procedural step to bring a case to court. However, this does not mean that a trial is certain. If the authorities decide they do not have enough evidence, the investigation could be closed before it goes to court. However, the step means there is a valid reason to continue an investigation.
The prosecutor’s statement (which we translated from French) summarizes why Durov ended up in police custody. Beccuau writes that Telegram “appears in several cases involving various crimes (child pornography, human trafficking, hate speech on the Internet).”
“Telegram’s almost total failure to respond to judicial requests has been brought to the attention of the Cybercrime Unit (J3) of the National Court for Organized Crime (JUNALCO) at the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office, in particular the National Office for Minors (OFMIN),” she also wrote.
“Other French investigative authorities and public prosecutors, as well as various Eurojust partners, in particular Belgian ones, shared the same observation after consultation. This led JUNALCO to launch an investigation into the possible criminal liability of those responsible for this messaging service for these crimes,” added Beccuau.
The Paris court then opened a preliminary investigation in February 2024 and entrusted the investigation to OFMIN. The Centre for Combating Cybercrime (C3N) and the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF) later took over the investigation.
This report appears to confirm a report by Politico that Durov’s problems began with a separate investigation focused on child sexual abuse. According to Politico reporters who were able to view documents from that investigation, one suspect told investigators they used Telegram to lure underage girls into sending “homemade child pornography,” then threatened to post the CSAM on social media.
It was also reported that as part of this case, French authorities made a request to Telegram to identify the suspect, but the company ignored the request – leading to a preliminary investigation for unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement in a criminal matter.
Telegram did not respond to a request for comment on Durov’s arrest and the allegations against him.
Lack of content moderation
While the case against Telegram was triggered by a CSAM investigation, it gained more weight during the preliminary investigation as French authorities began to investigate the messaging app’s activities more comprehensively.
Telegram currently has 950 million monthly active users and few moderation tools and processes. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Durov claimed that only 30 engineers work on the social app. In addition to the company’s unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement, the Paris court essentially claims that Telegram’s (lack of) moderation enables the sharing of CSAM, drug trafficking, and fraudulent activities on the platform.
“It is completely absurd to claim that the head of a social platform could be responsible for crimes in which he was neither directly nor indirectly involved,” David-Olivier Kaminski, a lawyer acting for Durov, told reporters on Wednesday evening local time, according to Le Monde.
But this line of defense does not explain why Telegram ignored law enforcement’s request in the first place.
In addition, Durov is also accused of money laundering, which could be related to Telegram’s cryptocurrency-related features and non-compliance with Know Your Customer requirements.
Telegram has a digital currency called Stars that can be used to purchase digital content from other users. Stars can also be converted into Toncoin, a cryptocurrency supported by Telegram that can be traded on various crypto exchanges and transferred to a bank account.
Because this is a large case, the investigation will probably take at least several months. It could even take more than a year. Durov is expected to remain in France for the duration of the investigation.
