Telegram founder Pavel Durov released from police custody to face questioning after arrest in France
Telegram founder Pavel Durov was released from police custody in France on Wednesday and transferred to court for questioning before a possible indictment.
Durov, the Russian-born billionaire who was arrested over the weekend, left the anti-fraud office near Paris in what looked like a police vehicle on Wednesday afternoon, according to CNN.
French prosecutors said the 39-year-old tech tycoon — who was in police custody for 96 hours, the maximum allowed under French law — was being transferred to a Paris court to face “initial questioning and possible indictment.”
The judge will decide whether to place him under formal investigation following his arrest as part of a probe into organized crime on the messaging app, a judicial source told Reuters.
The overall investigation is at this stage directed against unspecified people.
It focuses on suspected complicity in crimes including running an online platform that allows illicit transactions; possessing images of child sex abuse; drug trafficking; fraud; refusing to pass information to authorities; and providing cryptographic services to criminals, prosecutors said.
Being placed under formal investigation in France does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates that judges consider there is enough to the case to proceed with the probe.
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Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or shelved.
If Durov is placed under formal investigation, judges will also decide whether to put him in pretrial detention.
One factor they will consider is whether Durov is a flight risk. He holds French and United Arab Emirates citizenship — and a net worth estimated at more than $9 billion.
The news outlet Politico reported that French authorities had also issued an arrest warrant for Durov’s brother Nikolai, a co-founder of Telegram, and that both warrants had been issued in March.
Asked about the report, the Paris prosecutor’s office said arrest warrants were covered by the secrecy of the investigation. It said the only person currently being questioned was Pavel Durov.
Durov’s arrest has thrust into focus the uneasy relationship between governments and Telegram, which has close to 1 billion users.
The messaging and social media app, which is renowned for its airtight encryption technology that makes it virtually impossible for governments to breach, is widely used in France — including by some officials in the presidential palace and in the ministry behind the investigation into Durov.
But French investigators have also found the app has been used by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.
In a statement on Monday, Telegram said it abided by European Union laws and its moderation was “within industry standards and constantly improving.”
The company said that its content moderation is “within industry standards and constantly improving.”
“Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” it said.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform, or its owner, are responsible for abuse of that platform.”
Durov’s arrest has triggered protest from free speech advocates who say that French authorities are detaining him after anti-government demonstrators used the app to coordinate their activities.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the decision to bring charges against Durov was “in no way political.”
Telegram was launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai.
According to Telegram, Pavel Durov supports the app “financially and ideologically while Nikolai’s input is technological.”
Before Telegram, Pavel Durov founded VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network — earning him the moniker of Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg.
The company came under pressure amid the Russian government’s crackdown after mass pro-democracy protests rocked Moscow at the end of 2011 and 2012.
Durov said government authorities demanded that the VKontakte take down the online communities of Russian opposition activists.
It later asked the platform to hand over the personal data of users who took part in the 2013 uprising in Ukraine, which eventually ousted a pro-Kremlin president.
Durov fled Russia and went into self-imposed exile in 2014.
