Telegram’s billionaire founder and owner Pavel Durov was arrested while deboarding his private jet at Le Bourget airport outside Paris. French prosecutors have provided more insight into his arrest, stating that Durov’s arrest is part of an investigation opened on July 8 against an unnamed individual and includes a slew of serious charges, including distribution of child pornography, drug sales, money laundering and a refusal to cooperate with law enforcement.
According to a statement issued by Laure Beccuau, Prosecutor of the Republic, Durov’s custody can last up to 96 hours or August 28, during which he’ll be questioned by investigators looking into the issue. The charges included in the statement are as follows:
- Complicity: web-mastering an online platform enabling an illegal transaction in an organised group.
- Refusal to communicate relevant documents at the request of the authorities.
- Possession of child pornography.
- Distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors in organised groups.
- Acquiring, transporting, possessing, offering, or selling narcotic substances.
- Offering, selling or making available, without legitimate reason, equipment, tools, programs or data designed for or adapted to get access to and to damage the operation of an automated data processing system.
- Organised fraud.
- Criminal association to commit a crime or an offence punishable by five or more years in prison.
- Money laundering
- Providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration.
- Providing a cryptology tool does not solely ensure authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.
- Importing a cryptology tool ensures authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.
It’s unclear whether these charges will be brought against Durov. The investigation is being handled by cybercrime and anti-fraud specialists, and according to Beccuau, “it is within this procedural framework that Pavel Durov was questioned by the investigators.”
The arrest comes with severe charges against an unnamed individual, and Telegram, along with its founder, is clearly being held responsible. Whether that’s for refusing to comply with law enforcement to aid their investigations or for actively enabling said chargers remains to be seen.
Durov’s arrest has also stirred up a new debate about freedom of speech in France and in Europe as a whole. Although French leaders generally refrain from commenting on the early stages of such criminal investigations, President Emmanuel Macron clarified that the arrest has no political motives and that France remains “committed to the freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will remain so.”
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