The Paris prosecutor’s office has reported the suspected involvement of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in 12 crimes. Among them are cybercrimes, money laundering and importing a cryptologic device without prior declaration. This is stated in a press release on the website of the agency.
The judicial investigation in which Durov was detained was opened against an “unnamed person” for:
– complicity in the administration of an online platform for illegal transactions of organized groups;
– refusal to turn over information necessary for law enforcement investigations when requested to do so;
– complicity in the possession of pornographic content involving minors;
– complicity in the distribution of such content;
– complicity in the distribution and possession of narcotics;
– complicity in cybercrime;
– complicity in fraud as part of an organized criminal group;
– conspiracy to commit a felony;
– money laundering;
– providing cryptologic services without a license;
– supplying cryptologic equipment without prior declaration;
– importing such equipment.
If all of these charges are brought against Durov, he could face dozens of years in prison.
Jean-Michel Bernigo, secretary general of the French agency OFMIN, said on the LinkedIn social network that the case against Telegram founder Pavel Durov was related to poor moderation of content in the messenger, especially related to child pornography. The agency is in charge of preventing crimes against children and issued the warrant that led to Durov’s arrest on Saturday.
“At the heart of this case is the lack of moderation and cooperation from the platform (which has nearly 1 billion users), especially in dealing with child pornography,” Bernigo wrote on the social network. Officially, his agency did not comment on the reasons for the detention.
Bernigo recommended that subscribers watch a documentary about the proliferation of pedophile content on Instagram to “better understand the problem.” He did not specify the connection between Telegram and Instagram, and there were no reports about the claims of French law enforcement agencies against the social network and Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta Corporation, which owns it.
