On August 28 last year, the French justice indicted the founder of the social network for crimes related to the encrypted messaging platform, having released it under tight judicial surveillance.
The founder of the encrypted telegram messages platform, Pavel Durov, argued for suspicion of complicity in criminal activities, left this Saturday, with judicial permission, France, towards Dubai, where his company is headquartered, said AFP.
The instructional judge accepted several days ago the change of coercion measure and authorized the departure of France for “several weeks”, according to sources heard by AFP.
“He [Pavel Durov] He left France this morning with the agreement “of the authorities, confirmed another source close to the case heard by the French news agency.
A third source said he left the country from Bourget airport near Paris late on Saturday, towards Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where the company is headquartered.
Neither the lawyers of Durov nor a Telegram spokesman in Washington, United States, were available to comment on this information, AFP said.
In 2024, Pavel Durov was arrested and then argued in late August by two French judges on suspicion of serious organized crime infractions.
Generally, it is accused of doing nothing to prevent the diffusion of criminal content through the Telegram platform.
Durov was liberated, but subject to coercion measures, including the payment of a five million euros and presentations in the squad twice a week, as well as the ban on abandoning French territory.
The founder of the Telegram message platform said in court that only in police custody he was aware of all accusations against his platform.
In December, before a court, Pavel Durov rejected that he had created Telegram, with his brother in 2013, “for criminals”, but admitted that his presence on the platform, although, according to himself, is small, “also increased.”
The statements of Durov, which was born in Russia and have several nationalities – including the French – were made in December, before judges of instruction.
Judges identified about 15 groups with activities related to pedophilia, drugs, fraud or weapons, which led the president of the platform to be indicted for complicity with criminal activity in late August.
Durov has rejected that Telegram allows more easily than ‘Darkweb’ (obscure internet) access to illegal platforms and argued that they are eliminated every month between 15 and 20 million accounts and between one and two million channels or groups.
The administrator said he was “personally disgusted” with these violations, which he considered “bad for society and the business.”
The company is headquartered in Dubai and announced profits for the first time in December, but it has noted that it continues with a $ 2,000 million (1,946 million euros) debt.
Pavel Durov added that the company is “committed to improving” its moderation processes, repeating the promises made in September and that they were greeted by the French head of state, Emmanuel Macron.
Telegram has increased collaboration with authorities in France in recent months. In the first quarter of 2024, the platform responded to four court orders, a number that has grown to 673 in the last three months of this year.
In the first half, the platform gave in information to identify more than 10,000 users globally.
