Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, has been charged in France for allowing several criminal activities on the messaging app. The billionaire failed to curb spread of sexual images of children, drug trafficking and other illegal activities on Telegram, the court ruled.
In a statement, the Paris prosecutors said that Durov has been charged with refusing to share documents demanded by authorities as well as “dissemination of images of minors in child pornography” as well as drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering.
The charges against the 39-year-old paint a picture of a platform almost entirely uncooperative with authorities and include allegations he refused to help agencies run legal wiretaps on suspects. He has also been accused of enabling gangs and organised criminal networks to carry out illegal transactions on the app.
Russian-born Durov, who was arrested on Saturday, has been granted bail on the condition that he must not leave France and report to a police station twice a week. He has also been ordered to pay $ 5.6 million in bail.
In a statement released on Telegram on Sunday, the Dubai-based company asserted that Durov has “nothing to hide” and that the app abides by European laws.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” the statement declared. “We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation.”
The case has fuelled debate on where freedom of speech ends and enforcement of the law begins. It also underlines the uneasy relationship between governments and Telegram, which has close to 1 billion users, while serving as a warning shot to tech titans who refuse to comply with authorities over alleged illegality on their platforms.
Separately, Durov is also being investigated on suspicion of “serious acts of violence” towards one of his children while he and an ex-partner, the boy’s mother, were in Paris, a source said. She also filed another complaint against Durov in Switzerland last year.
