Pavel Durov, the CEO and a co-founder of the news and messaging app Telegram, has been charged in France with enabling various forms of criminality in the app, French prosecutors said Wednesday.
One of the charges — complicity in administering an online platform permitting illicit transactions by an organized group — carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros ($555,750), prosecutors said.
It is one of the few times the CEO of a major internet platform has been charged over allegations of criminal failure to moderate what users do on its platform.
In a statement Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Telegram had almost completely failed to respond to its legal requests for user data in prosecuting cybercrime cases.
Prosecutors alleged numerous offenses in Wednesday's statement, including refusal to communicate with authorities, "complicity" in offenses related to child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, and implementing encrypted technology without proper declaration.
While Durov awaits trial, his bail is set at 5 million Euros ($5.6 million). He will be forbidden to leave France and will be required to report to the police twice a week, the release said.
Durov had been held in French custody since Saturday and was transferred to a French court for questioning Wednesday. A video circulating on social media appeared to show him leaving the Judicial Court of Paris on Wednesday with his lawyer, David-Olivier Kaminski.
French prosecutors said Monday that Durov was detained as part of a larger investigation into an unnamed person that was opened last month. Prosecutors said the person was accused of “complicity” in various criminal activities, including the facilitation of the transfer of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking.
Charges the prosecutor’s office cited seemed to refer specifically to Telegram, including failure to register the platform’s encrypted messaging option with the government.
Telegram, under Durov’s leadership, has been particularly reluctant to moderate content or cooperate with law enforcement or courts. Durov, born in the former Soviet Union, has presented himself as a free speech absolutist, and he moved Telegram’s headquarters from Russia to the United Arab Emirates after, he said, the Kremlin demanded he turn over users’ data.
Durov’s arrest has sparked outcry and speculation from some free speech advocates and high-profile members of the tech community, who have suggested that he was arrested in an effort to control or access communications on the platform.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote Monday on X: “The arrest of the head of Telegram on French territory took place in the context of a judicial inquiry in process. It was not in any way a political decision.”
While Durov’s approach has earned him praise from far-right and libertarian figures, it has frustrated child safety groups, which say that Telegram has become a central hub for child sexual abuse material and that it is the only major internet platform to be completely uncooperative in their attempts to curb that content.
A Telegram spokesperson told NBC News on Tuesday that Telegram uses a combination of moderators, artificial intelligence and user reports to remove public channels that host child sexual abuse material. Telegram publishes a daily report that claims it removes thousands of channels for child sexual abuse material a day.
But the site’s terms of service say that there is no means for reporting illegal activity in private chats and that Telegram has never given any government any information about a user. That is a stark contrast from other major tech platforms, many of which issue regular reports detailing compliance with court orders and warrants from governments around the world.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Durov’s indictment.
