French authorities charge Telegram CEO with aiding and abetting criminal activities on the platform

29 August 2024Ravie LakshmananOnline crime / data protection

On Wednesday, French prosecutors charged CEO Pavel Durov with facilitating numerous criminal activities on the popular messaging platform and opened an official investigation against him following his arrest on Saturday.

Durov, a Russian-born French citizen, is accused of complicity in the dissemination of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as well as facilitating organized crime, illegal transactions, drug trafficking and fraud.

Durov is also accused of “refusing to provide, at the request of the competent authorities, information or documents necessary for the implementation and execution of legally permitted wiretapping measures,” according to an English translation of the press release.

The 39-year-old was arrested at Le Bourget airport north of Paris at 8 p.m. local time on Saturday after disembarking from a private jet. To avoid pre-trial detention, Durov was ordered to pay bail of 5 million euros, but is not allowed to leave the country and must report to the authorities twice a week.

The arrest is linked to a judicial investigation against an unnamed individual that was launched in France on July 8, 2024. The main reason is Telegram’s lax moderation policies, which have allowed extremist and malicious activity to flourish on the platform. A preliminary investigation is said to have begun in February 2024.

“Telegram’s almost total lack of response to judicial requests was brought to the attention of the Cybercrime Fighting Unit (J3) of JUNALCO (National Jurisdiction for Combating Organized Crime at the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office) and in particular of OFMIN (National Office for Minors),” said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

“Other French investigative authorities and prosecutors, as well as various Eurojust partners, particularly Belgian ones, shared this observation when asked. This led JUNALCO to launch an investigation into the possible criminal liability of the operators of this messaging service in committing these crimes.”

Other charges against Durov include:

• Provision of cryptographic services to ensure confidentiality without declaration of conformity
• Provision and import of a cryptographic means that does not exclusively provide authentication or integrity control functions, without prior declaration

The development is one of the rare cases in which a company’s top executive has been held liable for its users’ posts on a major platform with more than 950 million monthly active users. Durove was previously CEO of Russian social media platform Vkontakte, which he founded in 2006. Telegram was founded in 2013.

Following Durov’s arrest, Telegram said in a statement on X that he had “nothing to hide,” adding: “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the misuse of that platform.” The company also claims it regularly publishes reports on thousands of groups and channels related to child abuse that have been blocked on the messaging service.

It is also worth noting that the site’s terms of service explicitly state that it does not process requests related to illegal content shared in Telegram chats and group chats.

Politico has since reported that French authorities have issued arrest warrants for Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and his brother, co-founder Nikolai, in March 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Durov’s arrest was not a political decision but part of an independent investigation.

The Wall Street Journal also revealed on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Durov’s iPhone was hacked by French spies in 2017 as part of a joint operation with the United Arab Emirates. The incident was part of a previously unknown operation codenamed “Purple Music.”

“French security authorities were extremely concerned that the Islamic State was using Telegram to recruit activists and plan attacks,” the report said.