Telegram’s Durov released on bail, facing serious charges and long sentence

Pavel Durov, the visionary behind secure messaging platform Telegram, now finds himself at the center of a legal storm in France, facing serious charges related to the privacy features that made his platform a global sensation.

Pavel Durov, the CEO and founder of messaging giant Telegram, has been released from prison after being charged by French authorities. He is now under judicial supervision following a court appearance. While the release on bail is a positive step, French media reports that Durov is banned from leaving France and that the charges against him are serious.

After being arrested at Paris’s Bourget airport in late August, he was formally charged on Wednesday with involvement in running an online platform that facilitated illegal transactions by an organized group, a charge that could land him in prison for up to 10 years. He is accused of criminal activities related to his platform, including complicity in illegal transactions by organized gangs, laundering the proceeds of crime and failing to provide crucial information to authorities. He is also accused of facilitating the distribution of illegal material, including child abuse, drug trafficking and financial fraud, and of failing to cooperate with law enforcement.

The Ton Society has started a petition on Telegram calling on French authorities to use #FREEDUROV.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau issued a statement confirming that the Telegram CEO had to post bail of 5 million euros (about $5.5 million). Although he has been released, he must still report to police twice a week.

The Ton Society has launched an online petition “Free Pavel Durov and Protect Freedom of Speech” on Telegram, which has so far received over 5 million signatures. The petition characterizes Durov’s arrest as “a blatant attack on freedom of speech and the right to privacy.” Notable signatories include Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin and Elon Musk. Interestingly, an X-post by Buterin on the topic of Durov’s arrest suggested that Telegram wasn’t entirely innocent. “I’ve criticized Telegram before for not being serious about encryption,” he said. “But given the information available so far: the charges seem to be simply unmoderated and not providing people’s data — this looks very bad and is worrying for the future of software and communications freedom in Europe.”

Telegram is an app with millions of users who value its privacy features. Secret chats on the Telegram platform are protected with end-to-end encryption, which means that only the sender and recipient have access to the contents of the message. The company does not store these chats on its servers or keep logs of the messages, meaning there is no record of who was involved in the conversation or when it happened. Commentators have noted that Telegram’s reach, privacy, and user anonymity have made it a hub for criminals to find targets and deploy tools to carry out illegal activities.

TON coin price is down around 25% after a major sell-off following the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in Paris. Source: Brave New Coin Market Cap Table.

The Toncoin (TON) price has dropped 24.4% since Durov’s arrest. TON is a US$12 billion market cap token with ties to Telegram and is the native token of ‘The Open Network’, a high-performance, decentralized blockchain founded by Telegram in 2018. The blockchain is known for its fast transaction processing speeds. While Toncoin and Telegram are separate entities, they remain closely linked. The Telegram app has a built-in TON blockchain and token. There are also incentives within the app that encourage users to spend TON tokens.