CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov has been banned from leaving France after being accused of complicity in running an online platform that allegedly allowed the distribution of sexual images of children, creating an uncertain future for the messaging app, which has become one of the largest social media platforms in the world.
Durov was arrested on Saturday at 8pm local time after his private jet landed at an airport near Paris. He was then detained for four days as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity taking place on Telegram. On Wednesday evening local time, he was charged and banned from leaving the country, according to a statement released by the Paris prosecutor. He was released under judicial supervision, the statement said, and must post bail of 5 million euros ($5.5 million) and report to a police station in France twice a week.
The founder of Telegram was officially investigated for a number of charges related to material with sexual abuse of children, drug trafficking, importing cryptology without a prior declaration, as well as an “almost complete lack” of cooperation with the French authorities, Laure Bequo, Paris prosecutor, said on Wednesday.
French authorities noted Telegram’s “almost complete lack of response to legal requests,” Bequo noted. “This is what brought JUNALCO [the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime] to open an investigation for possible criminal liability of the heads of this messaging service for the commission of these crimes,” she said. The preliminary investigation began in February 2024. and initial investigations were coordinated by OFMIN, an agency created to prevent violence against minors, its statement added.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the misuse of this platform,” Telegram said on Sunday, before Durov was charged. The platform, which has 900 million active users, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
Following his arrest, the UAE and Russia have requested consular access to Durov, who holds citizenship in both countries. It is not clear why Durov, who also obtained a French passport after leaving Russia, was in France. “I don’t take vacations,” he said on his Telegram channel in June.
Russia has argued, without evidence, that Durov’s arrest is an attempt by the United States to exert influence on the platform through France. “Telegram is one of the few and at the same time the largest Internet platforms over which the United States has no influence,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said in the application.
