LITANY OF CHARGES
Durov was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris late on Saturday and questioned in subsequent days by investigators.
He was granted conditional release on a bail of five million euros (US$5.5 million) and on the condition he must report to a police station twice a week as well as remaining in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The charges concern alleged crimes involving an organised group, including “complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction”.
This charge alone could see him jailed for up to 10 years and fined 500,000 euros if convicted.
Durov has also been charged with refusing to share documents demanded by authorities, “dissemination in an organised group of images of minors in child pornography”, as well as drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering.
The Paris prosecutor said the French judicial authorities had been made aware of the “near total absence of a response” from Telegram to requests from the authorities and had first opened an investigation in February 2024.
The next step will be for the case to be sent to trial.
Separately, Durov is also being investigated on suspicion of “serious acts of violence” towards one of his children while he and an ex-partner, the boy’s mother, were in Paris, a source said. She filed a criminal complaint against Durov in Switzerland last year.
The tech mogul founded Telegram as he was in the process of quitting his native Russia a decade ago following a dispute with authorities related to ownership of his first project, the Russian-language social network VKontakte.
An enigmatic figure who rarely speaks in public, Durov is a citizen of Russia, France and the United Arab Emirates, where Telegram is based.
Forbes magazine estimates his current fortune at US$15.5 billion, though he proudly promotes the virtues of an ascetic life that includes ice baths and not drinking alcohol or coffee.
Source: CNA
