France issues charges against Telegram CEO Pavel Durov

PARIS

The chief of Telegram Pavel Durov has been charged by the French judiciary with a litany of violations related to the messaging app but allowed to go free while being banned from leaving the country.

Durov was granted conditional release against a bail of five million euros and on the condition he must report to a police station twice a week as well as remaining in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement following an hours-long hearing with two investigating magistrates.

The charges concern alleged crimes involving an organised group including "complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction".

Durov has also been charged with refusing to share documents demanded by authorities as well as "dissemination in an organised group of images of minors in child pornography" as well as drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering.

The prosecutor said that the French judicial authorities had been made aware of the "near total absence of a response" from Telegram to requests from the authorities and had first opened an investigation in February 2024.

It is absurd to suggest Durov could be implicated in any crime committed on the popular messaging app, his lawyer said, after prosecutors issued charges against him.

"It is totally absurd to think that the head of a social network... could be involved in criminal acts" that could be committed on the messaging service, said lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski, adding: "Telegram complies in all respects with European rules concerning digital technology."