The arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder of the social platform Telegram, by the French government shocked the world. Based on the maximum detention time of 96 hours, the prosecutors should take further actions (release, renewal of detention, etc.) at 2 or 3 o'clock tomorrow (29th) at the latest. or formal prosecution).
It is worth noting that according to a French administrative document exclusively seen by "POLITICO" earlier, the French authorities actually issued an arrest warrant for Durov in March this year, on charges including "conspiracy within an organized group to possess, distribute , provide or provide pornographic images of minors" The investigation began months earlier than previously estimated by the media, surrounding Telegram's refusal to cooperate with the French police investigation into child sexual abuse.
Durov's brother is also wanted
It is worth noting that Durov’s brother Nikolai Durov, who is also the co-founder of Telegram, was also issued an arrest warrant by the police.
According to documents shared with POLITICO by people directly involved in the investigation, the French government issued an arrest warrant after a previous judicial request for Telegram to confirm the identity of a user "went unanswered."
At the same time, official documents also emphasized that in other cases, Telegram had almost no cooperation with French and European authorities, clearly reflecting Durov's insistence on not censoring platform users. It cited the use of Telegram by "numerous criminal groups" as the basis for issuing an arrest warrant for the Durov brothers.
However, the current documents do not indicate that the Durov brothers were directly involved in any illegal activities discovered by the investigation.
French prosecutors charge Pavel Durov with 12 counts
According to a statement issued by the Paris prosecutor on the 26th, the specific 12 charges against Pavel Durov are as follows:
- Accomplice: Manage an online platform to assist a criminal group in conducting illegal transactions
- Refusal to provide relevant authorities with information or documents necessary to conduct and operate a legally permitted interception
- Accomplice: Possession of pornographic images of minors
- Accomplice: Organizing a criminal group to disseminate, provide or publish pornographic images of minors
- Accomplice: Obtaining, transporting, possessing, providing or transferring drugs
- Complicity: Providing, transferring or making available without justifiable reasons equipment, tools, programs or data designed or adapted to disrupt and gain access to automated data processing systems,
- Accomplice: Organizational Fraud
- Participation in a crime or criminal group with the intention of committing a crime or misdemeanor punishable by at least 5 years in prison
- Money Laundering: Proceeds from Organized Group Crime and Crime
- Providing encryption services designed to ensure confidentiality without declaration of certification
- Providing undeclared encryption tools that go beyond authentication or integrity monitoring,
- Import cryptographic tools that do more than just authentication or integrity monitoring and are not declared in advance.
