Telegram boss Pavel Durov has been charged by French courts for allegedly enabling criminal activity on the messaging app, but has avoided jail thanks to a €5 million bail.
The Russian-born billionaire, who has French citizenship, was released on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and stay in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The charges against Durov include complicity in the dissemination of sexual images of children and a litany of other alleged violations on the messaging app.
Durov, 39, was arrested on Saturday at Le Bourget airport outside Paris on suspicion of failing to act against illicit content on the service, including the sharing of child sexual images, drug trafficking and fraud.
His surprise arrest has highlighted the criminal liability of Telegram, the popular app with around one billion users, and sparked a debate about free speech and government censorship.
French detectives specializing in cybercrime and fraud announced earlier this week that Durov’s arrest was part of a wide-ranging investigation into the lack of moderation of alleged criminal activity on the messaging app.
In a statement on Sunday, Telegram said it complied with European Union laws and that its moderation was “within industry standards and constantly improving.”
“Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and frequently travels around Europe,” it says. “It is absurd to claim that a platform, or its owner, is responsible for the abuse of that platform.”
Durov, a self-described libertarian often referred to as “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg,” lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and has citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates.
He recently said he had tried to set up shop in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco before choosing Dubai, which he praised for its business environment and “neutrality.”
Telegram has long been under close scrutiny by law enforcement agencies around the world due to its alleged use by terrorist organizations, drug traffickers, arms dealers and far-right extremist groups for communication, recruitment and coordination.
In A rare interview with the Financial Times In March, Durov, whose fortune is valued at more than $9bn (£6.8bn), said child abuse material and public calls for violence were “red lines” for Telegram.
But he has also repeatedly promoted the platform’s minimal moderation policies and commitment to free speech, boasting that his company employs just 30 full-time engineers.
Durov has largely managed to avoid the public scrutiny that top executives at other tech companies, such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, face. He has rarely given interviews, preferring to show off his ascetic lifestyle to his followers on Instagram, where he occasionally shares shirtless photos of himself. Last month, he told his social media followers that as a sperm donor, he now had more than 100 biological children.
Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with Kremlin demands to shut down opposition groups on the VK social network he founded when he was 22. He was forced to sell VK after a dispute with its Kremlin-linked owners and turned his attention to Telegram, the app he founded with his brother Nikolai in 2013.
Russia attempted to ban Telegram in 2018, but lifted all restrictions on the platform after Russian authorities said Durov was willing to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and extremism.
While Durov has sometimes presented himself as a Russian exile, leaked border data seen by the Guardian showed he visited the country more than 50 times between 2015 and 2021, sparking renewed speculation about his ties to the Kremlin.
Russian officials have called Durov’s arrest politically motivated, a claim strongly denied by Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
Questions have also been raised about the timing and circumstances of Durov’s arrest, in particular whether he was aware that Paris had issued an arrest warrant for him.
Le Monde newspaper reported that Durov had met Macron on several occasions before being granted French nationality in 2021 through a special procedure reserved for those deemed to have made a special contribution to France.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Macron suggested in 2018 that Durov should move Telegram’s headquarters to Paris, an offer Durov reportedly rejected.