Telegram’s founder is accused of complicity in a dozen crimes, including drug trafficking and distribution of child pornography.
Pavel Durov has now been released under court supervision, but with an obligation to post bail of €5 million. He is is obliged not to leave France and report to the police twice a week.
Durov is charged with complicity in in at least 12 crimes for refusing to moderate the messenger and cooperate with law enforcement. Under French law, punishment can be imposed for each of the charges (if they are not similar), so the Telegram founder faces up to 10 years in prison.
The prosecutor’s office noted that the investigation was launched because Telegram does not actually respond to court requests, including from other European countries. French President Emmanuel Macron said that the decision to detain Durov was not political.
As a reminder, Pavel Durov detained at the airport in Paris this weekend, when he landed on a private jet, and was detained for 4 days. Subsequently, France put his brother Nikolai on the wanted list (in total, according to PoliticoThe investigation into both was launched several months ago).
At the same time, Durov is involved in an investigation filed by the mother of his three children, Irina Bolgar — regarding violence against his sonas well as in the EU investigation, which suggests that Telegram could hide the real number European users in order not to comply with the standards for large IT companies.
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