French prosecutors gave preliminary information in a Press release A statement was released on Monday announcing the investigation into Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was suddenly arrested at Paris’ Le Bourget airport on Saturday. Durov has not been charged with any crime so far, but authorities said he is being held as part of an investigation “against an unidentified person” and could remain in police custody until Wednesday.
The investigation began on July 8 and involves wide-ranging charges related to alleged money laundering, violations related to the import and export of encryption tools, refusal to cooperate with law enforcement and “complicity” in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of child pornography, and more.
The investigation was launched by the J3 Section of the cybercrime prosecutors and was supported by the Centre for the Fight against Cybercrime (C3N) and the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF), according to the statement. “It is within this procedural framework that Pavel Durov was questioned by the investigators,” wrote Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau in the statement.
Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the investigation, but stated in A statement posted on the company’s news channel on Sunday that Durov “has nothing to hide.”
“Given the existence of several preliminary investigations in France into Telegram in relation to the protection of the rights of minors and in cooperation with other French investigative units, for example on cyberbullying, Durov’s arrest does not seem to me to be a very exceptional measure,” says Cannelle Lavite, a French lawyer specialising in freedom of expression issues.
Lavite notes that Durov is a French citizen who was arrested on French soil on an arrest warrant issued by French judges. She adds that the list of charges involved in the investigation is “extensive,” a wide net that she says is not entirely surprising in the context of France’s “ambiguous legislative arsenal” aimed at balancing content moderation and freedom of expression.
Durov is a controversial figure for his leadership of Telegram, largely because he is often uncooperative with calls to moderate the platform’s content. In some ways, this has positioned him as a defender of free speech against government censorship, but it has also made Telegram a haven for hate speech, criminal activity, and abuse. In addition, the platform is often promoted as a safe communication tool, but much of it is open and accessible by default.
“Telegram is not primarily an encrypted messenger; most people use it almost like a social network and don’t use any of its features that have end-to-end encryption,” says John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab. “What this implies is that Telegram has a wide range of capabilities and access to potentially moderate content and respond to legal requests. This puts Pavel Durov at the center of all kinds of potential government pressure.”
In addition to all this, many researchers have disputed whether Telegram’s end-to-end encryption is durable when users choose to enable it.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on social media: mail On Monday, Telegram CEO Français said that “France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication… The arrest of the Telegram president on French soil occurred as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. This is in no way a political decision.”
However, news of Durov’s arrest is fuelling fears that the move could threaten Telegram’s stability and undermine the platform. The case also appears poised to have implications for long-running debates playing out around the world over social media moderation, the influence of governments and the use of privacy-preserving end-to-end encryption.
Lavite says the case certainly raises debates about “the balance between the right to encrypted communication and freedom of expression on the one hand, and the protection of users (content moderation) on the other.” But he notes that there is a lot of information about the investigation that is unknown and “there are still many areas that are unclear.”
On Monday afternoon, Telegram appeared to be receiving a Download Boost As a result, the app dropped from 18th to 8th place in the Apple App Store’s US app rankings. Overall iOS downloads increased by 4 percent, and in France, the app was number one in the App Store’s social networking category and number three overall.