Telegram Founder Durov Released on €5 Million Bail and Banned from Leaving France

On 28 August, Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the Russian messenger Telegram, was released from custody on €5 million bail and banned from leaving France.

This was reported by BFMTV, Politico, and Reuters, citing the Paris prosecutor's office.

Since now, Durov has to report twice a week to a police station in the French capital.

The Telegram founder was also charged with several articles. These include the distribution of images of minors with child pornography, drug trafficking, fraud, criminal conspiracy, complicity of an organised group in the administration of an online platform for illegal financial transactions and money laundering, refusal to provide information or documents at the request of the authorised bodies, and a number of others.

Certain offences, if proven, are punishable by up to 10 years in prison and fines.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that the judge had found grounds for an official investigation into Durov on all the charges on which he was arrested.

According to Politico, back in March, France issued an arrest warrant not only for Durov, but also for his brother Nikolai.

The document states that the French undercover investigation into Telegram is wider and began several months earlier than previously known. The case concerns Telegram's refusal to cooperate with French police in an investigation into child sexual abuse.

The arrest warrants were issued on charges of ‘complicity in the possession, distribution, offering or provision of pornographic images of minors in an organised group’.

The warrants were issued following an undercover investigation into Telegram by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor's office, which found that the suspect had discussed how to get underage girls to send ‘homemade child pornography’ and then threatened to publish it on social media.

According to the investigation, the suspect told investigators that he had raped a young child. 

The investigation has not disclosed who the suspect is. There is also no hint that the Durov brothers were directly involved in any of the illegal activities identified by the investigation. 

Telegram Vice President Ilya Perekopsky is also mentioned in the case summary, although the document does not indicate whether a warrant for his arrest has been issued.

As The Gaze previously reported, French law enforcement officers detained Russian Telegram founder Pavel Durov. It was known that he was suspected of 12 crimes, including, in addition to complicity in the storage of pornographic content, complicity in cybercrime and fraud.