After spending 4 days in police custody, the founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, was put below formal investigation in France on Thursday for a variety of felony prices.
He was additionally launched from custody on the situation that he doesn’t depart French territory through the investigation. Bail was set at €5 million (round $5.6 million) and he should test in at a police station twice per week.
On Tuesday, the court docket accountable for the investigation — the Paris felony court docket — shared a listing of prices that led to Durov’s arrest on August 24 after he stepped off his personal jet at France’s Le Bourget Airport.
The primary prices are accusations of working an organization that has been complicit in storing and distributing baby sexual abuse materials (CSAM), facilitating drug trafficking and facilitating organized fraud and different unlawful transactions. He’s additionally dealing with prices regarding registration of Telegram’s cryptographic options, amongst different felony complaints.
In a assertion, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed all the fees and mentioned the investigation is shifting ahead. The very fact of Durov being positioned below formal investigation means he’s formally suspected of what he’s been accused of.
Within the French judicial system being positioned below formal investigation is a crucial procedural step to be able to take a case to trial. Nonetheless it doesn’t imply a trial is for certain. If authorities resolve they don’t have a robust sufficient case the investigation may very well be shelved earlier than it will get to court docket. However the step means there’s a considerable motive to pursue a probe.
The prosecutor’s assertion (which we’ve translated from French) summarizes why Durov ended up in police custody, with Beccuau writing that Telegram “seems in a number of circumstances involving numerous offenses (baby pornography, trafficking, on-line hate speech)”.
“Telegram’s nearly complete failure to answer judicial requests was dropped at the eye of the cybercrime part (J3) of the organized crime nationwide court docket (JUNALCO) inside the Paris public prosecutor’s workplace, specifically by the nationwide workplace for minors (OFMIN),” she additionally wrote.
“When consulted, different French investigation departments and public prosecutors’ places of work, in addition to numerous Eurojust companions, notably Belgian, shared the identical commentary. This led JUNALCO to open an investigation into the potential felony duty of the executives of this messaging service in these offenses,” Beccuau added.
Subsequent to this — again in February 2024 — the Paris court docket opened a preliminary investigation and put OFMIN accountable for the probe. The Centre for the Combat towards Cybercrime (C3N) and the Anti-Fraud Nationwide Workplace (ONAF) later took over the investigation.
This account seems to verify reporting by Politico that mentioned Durov’s issues began with a separate investigation targeted on baby intercourse abuse. In line with Politico reporters, who had been capable of seek the advice of paperwork from that investigation, a suspect informed investigators they used Telegram to lure underaged ladies into sending “self-produced baby pornography.” They then threatened to launch the CSAM on social media.
It additionally reported that as a part of this case French authorities despatched a request to Telegram to determine the suspect. However the firm ignored the request — resulting in a preliminary investigation into its unwillingness to cooperate with regulation enforcement on a felony matter.
Telegram didn’t reply to a request for remark about Durov’s arrest and the fees he’s dealing with.
Lack of content material moderation
Whereas the case towards Telegram was sparked by a CSAM investigation it grew to become extra substantial through the preliminary investigation as French authorities began trying into the messaging app’s actions extra broadly.
Telegram presently has 950 million month-to-month lively customers and few moderation instruments and processes. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Durov claimed solely 30 engineers work on the social app. So, along with the corporate’s unwillingness to cooperate with regulation enforcement authorities, the Paris court docket is basically claiming Telegram’s (lack of) moderation permits the sharing of CSAM, drug trafficking and fraudulent actions to happen on the platform.
“It’s fully absurd to say that the pinnacle of a social platform may very well be liable for felony acts that don’t contain him, both straight or not directly,” David-Olivier Kaminski, a lawyer working for Durov, informed reporters on Wednesday night time native time, per Le Monde.
However that line of protection doesn’t clarify why Telegram ignored the regulation enforcement request within the first place.
Furthermore, Durov can also be being charged with cash laundering. This may very well be associated to Telegram’s cryptocurrency-related options and failing to comply with “Know Your Buyer” necessities.
Telegram has a digital forex known as Stars that can be utilized to purchase digital content material from different customers. Stars may also be transformed to Toncoin, a cryptocurrency backed by Telegram which will be traded on numerous crypto exchanges and transferred to a checking account.
As this can be a wide-ranging case, the investigation is more likely to final a number of months a minimum of. It may even take greater than a yr. Durov will probably be anticipated to stay in France for the length.