Pavel Durov, the CEO of messaging app Telegram, was charged Wednesday in France with multiple crimes.
Durov, 39, had been arrested at an airport outside Paris over the weekend. He was held and questioned for four days, then briefly released Wednesday morning before the charges against him were announced.
The arrest and charges have spiraled into an international incident, as Durov is a citizen of four nations — including France — and his app is used by nearly 1 billion people worldwide.
“The arrest of the head of Telegram on French territory took place in the context of a judicial inquiry in process,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday on social media. “It was not in any way a political decision.”
French authorities said they began investigating Durov in February as part of a larger probe. He stands accused of allowing criminal organizations to thrive on Telegram, which French cops charged under a crime of “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group.”
Telegram is well known among social media users for its lackadaisical approach to moderation, allegedly allowing child sex abuse material to proliferate on the platform. Additionally, Telegram proudly boasts a record of never providing user data to any government.
This policy drew the ire of Russia about a decade ago, during Ukrainian popular uprisings from 2013 to 2014. When the Kremlin demanded Telegram fork over user information, Durov refused and decamped to the United Arab Emirates.
Though Russia has attempted to outright ban Telegram in the past, Russian officials criticized the French arrest as politically motivated.
Meanwhile in Iran, where Telegram remains officially banned, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised France for being “strict” on internet regulation.
Durov’s prosecution would represent a never-before-seen case of a social media boss being criminally charged for actions by users on a platform.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” Telegram said in a statement.
In addition to his French, Russian and Emirati citizenship, Durov is also a citizen of the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. He was born in Russia.
With News Wire Services
