Wednesday, 31 December 2025

France Officially Indicts Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, Not Allowed To Leave Country

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France has indicted Telegram CEO Pavel Durov with six charges related to alleged illicit activity on the messaging app.

Durov was released from custody on a €5 million bail and placed on judicial supervision.

“He is forbidden from leaving France and must check in at a police station twice a week,” POLITICO reports.

From POLITICO:

The charges include complicity in managing an online platform “in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group,” and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a press release.

Governments in Paris, Moscow and Abu Dhabi have become tangled up in a diplomatic furor by the bombshell arrest of one of the world’s most powerful tech entrepreneurs, which also ignited a fierce debate about online free speech and technology regulation.

Durov was also charged with “complicity in the offenses of making available without legitimate reason a program or data designed for… organized gang distribution of images of minors presenting child pornography, drug trafficking.”

Telegram “appears in multiple cases involving various offenses (child sexual abuse offenses, trafficking, online hate),” the prosecutor’s office wrote, pointing to “Telegram’s almost total failure to respond to judicial requests.”

“One of the charges — complicity in administering an online platform permitting illicit transactions by an organized group — carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros ($555,750), prosecutors said,” NBC News noted.

Per NBC News:

Durov has been held in French custody since Saturday and was transferred to a French court Wednesday for questioning.

French prosecutors said Monday that Durov was detained as part of a larger investigation that was opened in July into an unnamed individual. Prosecutors said the person was accused of “complicity” in various criminal activities including the facilitation of the transfer of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and drug trafficking.

Charges that the prosecutor’s office cited seemed to specifically refer to Telegram, including failure to register the platform’s encrypted messaging option with the French government.

Telegram, under Durov’s leadership, has been particularly reluctant to moderate content or cooperate with law enforcement or courts. Durov, born in the former Soviet Union, has presented himself as a free speech absolutist and moved Telegram’s headquarters from Russia to the United Arab Emirates after he said the Kremlin demanded he turn over users’ data.

Durov’s arrest has sparked outcry and speculation from some free speech advocates and high-profile members of the tech community, who have suggested that the arrest by French authorities was conducted in an effort to control or access communications on the platform.

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