Telegram accused of not cooperating on drug trafficking and child sexual content.
After the arrest of Telegram CEO and co-founder Pavel Durov in France over the weekend, his detention was extended for up to four days while a judge decides whether he should face criminal charges.
“The detention of Durov, 39, was extended beyond Sunday night by the investigating magistrate who is handling the case, according to a source close to the investigation,” Le Monde reported. “This initial period of detention for questioning can last up to a maximum of 96 hours. When this phase of detention ends, the judge can then decide to free him or press charges and remand in further custody.”
Telegram “is accused of failure to cooperate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud,” the BBC wrote. Telegram yesterday said it “abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act,” and that the platform’s “moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving.”
“Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” the company said. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform. Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information. We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation.”
Durov’s arrest warrant was issued by “France’s OFMIN, an office tasked with preventing violence against minors,” Le Monde wrote. The warrant is reportedly related to “a preliminary investigation into alleged offenses including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime, and promotion of terrorism.”
Reuters wrote that a police spokesman told the news agency “that Durov is under investigation by the national cyber crime and fraud offices for failing to cooperate over cyber and financial crimes on Telegram.” The New York Times reported that “Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that the arrest was part of an investigation opened on July 8 ‘against person unnamed’ on a raft of potential charges, including complicity in the distribution of child pornography and selling of drugs, money laundering, and a refusal to cooperate with law enforcement.”
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The statement from Beccuau was released by French authorities in both French and English. It says Durov was questioned as part of an investigation into this “person unnamed.” The accusations against the unnamed person also include “web-mastering an online platform in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group,” and “refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law.”
Three of the charges being investigated are related to encryption, the French press release said. These include “providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration,” “providing a cryptology tool not solely ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration,” and “importing a cryptology tool ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.”
Macron: Arrest not a political decision
Durov was born in Russia and also has citizenship in the United Arab Emirates and France. Telegram is based in the UAE.
The Russian embassy in France reportedly said it “immediately asked French authorities to explain the reasons for this detention and demanded that [Durov’s] rights be protected and that consular access be granted. Up to now, the French side is refusing to cooperate on this question.”
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote today that the French judicial system is acting independently. “The arrest of the Telegram president on French territory took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,” he wrote, according to a Google translation. “This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.” Macron also wrote that France is committed to “freedom of expression and communication.”
Telegram offers a mix of private messaging and social network features. It lets users create groups of up to 200,000 people, and its Channels feature allows the posting of public messages to audiences of any size. Telegram messages do not have end-to-end encryption by default, but the extra level of security can be enabled for one-on-one conversations.
“If you want to use end-to-end encryption in Telegram, you must manually activate an optional end-to-end encryption feature called ‘Secret Chats‘ for every single private conversation you want to have,” Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins University professor and cryptographer, wrote. “The feature is explicitly not turned on for the vast majority of conversations, and is only available for one-on-one conversations, and never for group chats with more than two people in them.”
Russia lifted Telegram ban in 2020
Durov previously founded a social network called VKontakte, now known as VK. “He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VKontakte social media platform, which he sold,” the BBC wrote. Durov said at the time that he had “no plans to go back” and that “the country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment.”
Russia banned Telegram in 2018 but lifted the ban in 2020. Russian antiwar activists have used Telegram to communicate, but Russian authorities gaining access to messages from group chats raised questions about whether Telegram is cooperating with the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly declined to meet with Durov a few days before the arrest. “Kremlin-linked Telegram news channels claimed that Durov sought a meeting with Putin during the Russian leader’s state visit to Azerbaijan on Aug. 18-19, but Putin allegedly turned him down,” The Moscow Times wrote today. (The Moscow Times moved its operations to Amsterdam in 2022 in response to a news censorship law.)
Durov received words of support from Elon Musk, who wrote “#FreePavel” in a post that included a video of Durov praising Musk’s ownership of X (formerly Twitter) in an April 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson. Edward Snowden called the arrest of Durov “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association,” and claimed that “Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications.”
Telegram used by Russian military and bloggers
Telegram is used heavily by military bloggers and the Russian military itself, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based nonprofit research group that has closely followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Institute wrote yesterday that “Russian milbloggers reacted to Durov’s arrest by focusing on how Russian soldiers rely on ad-hoc communications, including Telegram, for organizing operations in Ukraine and called on the Russian military command to establish an adequate official communication system.”
Telegram was described as “the main alternative to official communications for Russian military personnel in Ukraine.” The Institute wrote:
The sudden uncertainty around Telegram’s continued ability to operate within Russia and any falter in Telegram operations will likely impact Russian frontline operations, and if blocked completely, degrade these operations in the near term. Russian military Telegram users may start migrating from Telegram, anyway, out of fear of the system being compromised while Durov is under arrest, and Russian forces may start decoupling from Telegram communications even if Telegram’s operations are not ostensibly or actually impacted by Durov’s arrest.
Telegram has allowed Russian military bloggers “to speak relatively freely under the Putin regime,” but “Russian authorities have resorted to public arrests of prominent information space figures, quietly fostering a culture of self-censorship, and creating a group of Kremlin-loyal milbloggers to exert control over the ultranationalist information space on Telegram,” the Institute said. The Kremlin has “more direct control to censor” on VK, which “is currently headed by Vladimir Kiriyenko, son of Presidential Office Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko.”
