His arrest at Le Bourget airport on the evening of Saturday, August 24 set off shockwaves. After more than 80 hours in police custody – the period applicable to offenses related to organized crime having been extended to 96 hours –, Telegram messaging boss Pavel Durov was placed under formal investigation on Wednesday, August 28 for all 12 offenses listed in the introductory indictment, including “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group,” “refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorized authorities, the information or documents required to carry out and operate the interceptions authorized by law,” “complicity in the organized gang distribution of images of minors of a child pornographic nature, drug trafficking, organized gang fraud, criminal conspiracy to commit crimes or misdemeanors” and “laundering of crimes or misdemeanors in an organized gang.”
In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, the Paris public prosecutor’s office added that “he has been placed under judicial supervision, with the obligation to post a bond of €5 million, to report to the police twice a week, and to refrain from leaving France.”
On July 8, a judicial investigation was opened “against an unnamed person,” a few months after the cybercrime unit of the Paris public prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation. Specifically, the company – and therefore its CEO – is accused of failing to cooperate with authorities, notably in cases of organized crime and child pornography. The judges have asked the C3N (Centre de Lutte Contre les Criminalités Numériques) and the ONAF (Office National Anti-Fraude) to continue their investigations.
“Telegram abides by European laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards,” the platform said in a statement released on Sunday evening, August 25, adding that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.” Telegram’s lawyer had not responded to our requests by the time of publication.
Quasi-absence of moderation
With almost one billion users worldwide, a large percentage of them in the former Soviet republics, Telegram has become, along with WhatsApp, one of the world’s leading messaging services. This success is due not only to its easy-to-use interface and large discussion groups that can be opened to anyone, but also to its almost total lack of moderation and cooperation with legal authorities. While it is possible to use the application as a simple messaging space between two users, many groups – which can be found in just a few minutes using keywords – use it for illicit activities, such as selling drugs or false papers, promoting terrorism or running cryptocurrency scams.
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