Politico looked at documents that show that in March 2024, French officials issued arrest warrants for Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and his brother, co-founder Nikolai Durov. A story in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week said that Durov’s phone had been hacked in 2017, a year before he met with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Reports say that Telegram refused to help with an earlier probe, which led to the warrants. The French government tried to find a Telegram user who was connected to a criminal investigation but didn’t hear back from the app.
Telegram CEO Arrested in Paris
The charges involve “complicity in possessing, distributing, offering, or making available pornographic images of minors, in an organized group.” The orders were issued after the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office found a suspect using Telegram to threaten to post child pornography online if girls didn’t make it.
Durov was arrested on August 24 at Le Bourget airport near Paris. He had come from Azerbaijan on a private jet and was stopped there. At the same time that this happened, Telegram bonds dropped sharply. They lost over 10.3% since August 14 and were selling at $87.2 at 12:41 p.m. UTC, according to Finra data.
Nikolay Denisenko, co-founder and CTO of the banking app Brighty, told Analyst that the arrest warrants have made people worry about a possible crackdown on people who make technologies that protect privacy.
“This of course raises concerns about potential government overreach and the broader implications for digital privacy. Either way, user security should always be top of mind, both in terms of privacy and protection from malevolent actors or illicit activity.”
