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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Charged With 'Criminal Use Of App'; Not Allowed To Leave France

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by Tyler Durden
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Update(1600ET): Paris prosecutors have confirmed that Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been charged and released on bail for six charges of 'alleged criminal use' of this app.

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).

He has been ordered to pay 5 million euros bail and is not allowed to leave France, and police will likely be monitoring closely any efforts to access his private jet or travel near airports, or ports of exit. Likely the precise list of charges as spelled out by the court will emerge in the coming hours.

Politico writes that he must check in at a police station twice a week:

The charges include complicity in managing an online platform “in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group,” and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a press release.

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been in French detention since Saturday, when he was arrested at Paris's Bourget Airport, with a period of "questioning" (but with no formal charges) having now been extended into several days.

But breaking reports say the 39-year old billionaire who has French, Russia, and UAE citizenship has been transferred to a Paris court to face a judge in preparation for possible indictment.

French prosecutors say Durov will face "initial questioning and possible indictment" at the court. A CNN correspondent witnessed the following in the afternoon local time:

The Russian-born billionaire exited the anti-fraud office outside Paris in what appeared to be a police vehicle on Wednesday afternoon, according to a CNN producer there.

...He was placed in custody for up to 96 hours, the maximum amount of time someone can be held under French law before being charged.

Are formal charges finally about to be brought and announced? Police have previously confirmed that a criminal investigation was opened starting last month, and that Telegram has been 'uncooperative'.

President Emmanuel Macron has meanwhile claimed that this isn't politically motivated and that it's merely a "rule of law" issue.

A litany of potential crimes announced by French officials as part of the probe relate to things hosted on a popular app which has over 950 million users. 

This includes allegations of fraud, aiding drug traffickers and the spread of child pornography. However, free speech advocates have pointed out that this is tantamount to holding Google executives legally accountable for every single criminal communication that ever happens on Google platforms.

According to more fresh details via The NY Times:

Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that the arrest was part of an investigation opened on July 8 “against person unnamed” on a raft of potential charges, including complicity in the distribution of child pornography and selling of drugs, money laundering, and a refusal to cooperate with law enforcement.

The investigation is being handled by cybercrime and anti-fraud specialists, Ms. Beccuau said. “It is within this procedural framework that Pavel Durov was questioned by the investigators,” she said.

Mainstream pundits in the West have gone so far as to push the 'Russian agent' talking points, claiming that somehow Durov being "Russian-born" makes him an enemy of the West - and yet there has for years been a clear record of Durov previously fleeing Russia amid attempts to crackdown on his prior social media platforms and initiatives.

More interesting details have lately come out concerning his relations with governments this week. "Six years before Pavel Durov landed in a French holding cell, the antiestablishment founder of the messaging app Telegram was in a very different position in France: having lunch with President Emmanuel Macron," The Wall Street Journal reports.

"At the lunch in 2018, which hasn’t been previously reported, Macron invited the Russian-born Durov to move Telegram to Paris, people familiar with the discussions said. Durov declined at the time." And more: "The French leader even discussed granting French citizenship to him, one of the people said. A French official said Durov asked Macron for citizenship."

What is the government's next move? 

Michael Every of Rabobank comments on the Durov saga as follows...

Elsewhere, Macron stated the arrest of UAE/St. Kitts/French citizen and billionaire founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was apolitical: yet potential cyber-crime charges are that the platform is used for illegal activities, and Durov won’t allow French authorities to monitor it. Again, Europe and social media monitoring and/or censorship are news. Telegram remains a favorite of the Macron circle even as the security of its messages is being called into question: if it is hackable, what might this show those who did? Meanwhile, showing how world power is rapidly shifting, the UAE made an official protest demanding access to Durov...

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