Telegram founder Pavel Durov charged with allowing criminal activity on messaging app

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov will face further investigation over allegations he allowed criminal activity on the messaging app.

French judges have banned Durov from leaving France pending further investigations. However, he was able to avoid pre-trial detention thanks to a €5 million bail.

The billionaire founder of the encrypted messaging and social media app was arrested in France on Saturday after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport outside Paris.

The Russian-born entrepreneur, who was granted French nationality in 2021, is accused of running a platform used for child sexual abuse material and used by organized criminal gangs for drug trafficking and fraud.

Read more: Who is Telegram founder Pavel Durov?

It is also claimed that Telegram refused to share information or documents with investigators.

Mr Durov is facing preliminary charges. Under French law, magistrates have strong grounds to believe a crime has been committed, but there is more time for further investigation.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to a lawsuit.

Telegram has stressed that it complies with EU law and that its moderation “falls within industry standards and is continuously improving”.

The statement continued: “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuse of that platform.”

Mr Durov’s arrest in France and four days of interrogation have sparked outrage in Russia.

Paper airplanes – bearing the Telegram logo – are being placed in Moscow in support of the billionaire.

Some government officials claim his arrest was politically motivated and that it shows the West has double standards when it comes to freedom of expression.

However, Kremlin critics point out that Russian authorities tried to block the Telegram app in 2018, but failed. The ban was lifted in 2020.

Meanwhile in Iranwhere Telegram is officially banned but still widely used, the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised France for being “tough” on those who violate “their governance” of the internet.

It has also led to controversial influencer- Andrew Tate to compare himself to the CEO of Telegram, while fighting allegations of human trafficking in Romania, among other things, which he denies.

But the French president Emmanuel Macron has insisted that Mr Durov arrest was not politicaland posted on X that his country is “deeply committed” to freedom of expression.

He added that “freedoms are upheld within a legal framework, both on social media and in real life, to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights”.

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Telegram, which claims to have nearly a billion users worldwide, was founded by Mr Durov after he came under pressure from Russian authorities over another platform he had launched, VKontakte (VK).

He ignored demands to restrict Russian opposition activists and hand over personal data from the popular social networking site.

Instead, he sold his stake in VK and left the country to focus on Telegram, which remains extremely influential in Russia. Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union.

Telegram offers end-to-end encryption, effectively protecting data from interception, and places a strong focus on privacy.

But while it is a crucial source of information about Russia’s war in Ukraine, it has also been used for criminal activities and recently by far-right activists who caused riots in the United Kingdom about the Stabbings in Southport.

Western governments have often criticized Telegram for its lack of content moderation, which experts say leaves the messaging app vulnerable to abuse by criminal and extremist gangs.

In 2022, Germany imposed fines of €5.1 million (£3.7 million) on Telegram for violating laws regulating major online platforms, including failing to establish a way to report illegal content.