His arrest at Le Bourget airport on the evening of Saturday 24 August raised eyebrows. After being held in police custody for more than eighty hours (the duration applicable to offences related to organised crime is extended to ninety-six hours), the head of the Telegram messaging service, Pavel Durov, was arrested for questioning on Wednesday 28 August on charges of the twelve offences mentioned in the introductory indictment, including “complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction, within an organised group”, “refusal to communicate, upon request of the authorised authorities, the information (…) necessary to carry out (…) interceptions authorised by law”, “complicity in the dissemination within an organised group of images of minors in the nature of child pornography, in drug trafficking, fraud by organised gangs, criminal association for the purpose of committing offences or crimes” and “laundering of offences or crimes by an organised gang”.
Pavel Durov also “He has been placed under judicial supervision with, in particular, the obligation to post a bail of 5 million euros, the obligation to report to the police station twice a week and the prohibition to leave French territory.” The Paris prosecutor’s office said in a press release published on Wednesday evening. That same evening, in front of a few media present in court, one of Mr Durov’s lawyers, David-Olivier Kaminski, said that he was “It is totally absurd to think that the administrator of a social network could be involved in criminal acts that do not concern him, either directly or indirectly.” “Telegram complies in all aspects with European regulations on digital technology, it is a moderator with the same standards as other social networks”he added, in line with the press release published by Telegram during the arrest of its CEO.
A judicial investigation was opened on July 8 “against unidentified person”A few months after the opening of a preliminary investigation by the anti-cybercrime section of the Paris prosecutor’s office, the messaging service (and therefore its CEO) has been particularly criticised for its lack of cooperation with the judicial authorities, especially in cases of organised crime or even child pornography. The judges have contacted the Centre for the Fight against Digital Crime (C3N) and the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF) to pursue these investigations.
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