What Happened with Pavel Durov?

the investigation, the arrest, the charges, the implication over internet freedom, reactions over the world: sum up of the Pavel Durov case

August the 24th, Pavel Durov founder of Telegram was arrested in France.

At 19h30, setting foot out of his plane (Embraer Legacy 600 rented to a private company) at Le Bourget airport, he is arrested by the police.

The arrest was done jointly by four different police: Gendarmerie des Transports Aériens – GAT (Aerial Transport Police), the Commandement de la gendarmerie dans le Cyberespace COMCyberGEND – (Cyberspace police), the Office national Antifraude – ONAF (new police force joining Customs and Finances directorates) and Police aux Frontières - PAF  (border police).

Durov name was on a Wanted Person File (Fichier des Personnes Recherchées) and he was arriving from Azerbaidjan. He was wanted in particular by the Office Mineurs OFMIN, a newly centralised police force to fight crime against children, especially on the Internet. OFMIN has the power to open preliminary investigations and has issued an arrest warrant in March 2024 that turned into a legal investigation in July. The warrant was supposed to run only if Durov were to set foot in France. “He did a mistake. No one knows why. Maybe this flight was only a transit ? In any case he is locked up” said a source close to the investigation to TF1 news channel. During his arrest Durov claimed he was coming to visit President Macron, French presidency denied the claim.

Durov avoided prison by paying a bail of 5 millions Euros (his total fortune is estimated somewhere between 9 and 15,5 billion dollars in shares and crypto ). He has to remain in France during the investigation and report to a police station twice a week.

The Investigation

The investigation started as a child crime investigation by OFMIN French police. The police, acting undercover, was talking to a suspect on Telegram. The suspect told the undercover police he was luring underage girls into sending nudes of themselves and then threatened to release them on social media. The suspect also told the investigators he had draped a young child.

Police issued a judicial request to Telegram to identify the user. The lack of answer from Telegram to the OFMIN triggered JUNALCO action.

JUNALCO (National jurisdiction against organised crime-Cybercrime unit) is a directorate belonging to prosecutor’s office which was created in 2019 to fight highest organised crime¹. OFMIN apparently referred to JUNALCO on the matter of Telegram refusing to cooperate with its investigation. In February 2024 JUNALCO looked at the case, asked other police or judicial authorities and it’s Eurojust partners if they also had problem with Telegram’s cooperation in investigations and lack of answers to resquests.

On this base, JUNALCO determined the legality of including Telegram founders into the investigations, and started a preliminary investigation in February 2024, including Pavel Durov in the investigation. In July the preliminary investigation became a legal probe given to the police Cyber Unit and the Anti-Fraud police (Office national Antifraude – ONAF and Commandement de la gendarmerie dans le Cyberespace COMCyberGEND)².

The charges

The charges against Durov have been listed in a press release from the prosecutor’s office (English translation below)

• Complicité d’administration d’une plateforme en ligne pour permettre une transaction illicite, en bande organisée (délit faisant encourir au maximum la peine de 10 ans d'emprisonnement et 500.000 € d'amende)

• Refus de communiquer, sur demande des autorités habilitées, les informations ou documents nécessaires pour la réalisation et l’exploitation des interceptions autorisées par la loi

• Complicité des infractions notamment de mise à disposition sans motif légitime d’un programme ou de données conçus pour une atteinte à un système de traitement automatisé de données, de diffusion en bande organisée d’image de mineur présentant un caractère pédopornographique, de trafic de stupéfiants, d’escroquerie en bande organisée, association de malfaiteurs en vue de la commission de crimes ou délits

• Blanchiment de crimes ou délits en bande organisée

• Fourniture de prestations de cryptologie visant à assurer des fonctions de confidentialité sans déclaration conforme

• Fourniture et importation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sans déclaration préalable

- Complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group

- Refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorized authorities, the information or documents required to carry out and operate the interceptions authorized by law.

- Complicity in the organized gang distribution of images of minors of a child pornographic nature, drug trafficking, organized gang fraud, criminal conspiracy to commit crimes or misdemeanors.

- Laundering of crimes or misdemeanors in an organized gang.

- He is also charged with offering encrypted technology services “without certified declaration,” and of importing an encrypted messaging app, also “without prior declaration.”

These two last charges come from an inapplicable and useless French law from 2004 .

The implications on internet freedoms

Despite the mountain of problems posed by Telegram, arresting Durov, the founder of the Platform under these charges introduces some worrying prospect for civil liberties and internet surveillance.

Telegram likes to market itself as the bad boy of the platforms, but crime, terrorism and paedophilia is happening elsewhere. On Facebook; On Youtube and on Twitter as well.

La Quadrature du Net, a French NGO fighting against internet surveillance and abuses by government has listed the most pressing issues over internet freedom raised by Telegram case. Following is a summary of their key points.

The first worry comes from the French judicial authorities insisting to call Telegram a private messagery service, but investigation Telegram for facts related to its activities as a social network.

Some may think it was Telegram’s responsibility to clarify and to decide either it was posing as a messaging service or as a social network. But other messaging services also make the same moves. Signal recently implemented a “story” feature and WhatsApp “channels” also implies social network activity and public messaging.

The problem here is a growing confusion between what is public and what is private. Me publicly calling for a crime on the internet: this is a crime and the platform where it happens has to take it down or it is complicit. But whatever I say to a friend in private conversation, the platform is not supposed to know about it in the first place if it is not actively listening to my conversations (and violating the laws on my privacy).

The charges of Telegram knowingly letting crime and paedophilia happening on its platform can only concern public messages. It is the only case where Telegram could know about a criminal activity happening via its services and willingly do nothing. Otherwise, it implies Telegram has an obligation to monitor our private conversation.

Messagery services and social network only have a responsibility toward content that have been notified to them and them willingly and knowingly maintain on their platform. For content to be notified they have to be seen by someone who will notify them, thus public.

For a platform to know about an illegal content in a private message, that would imply a general surveillance of all the private messages of every user, which goes against fundamental rights, would be completely unethical, and is actually against the Digital Services Act.

This paradoxical logic was first implied in the recent Encrochat case. This incredible police operation saw the police infiltrating Encrochat, an encryption service favoured by organised crime. The joint French and Dutch police and justice operation led to 6500 arrests and 900 million euro seized.

However, as Europol puts it: this incredible investigation could happen because of breaking encryption and obtain access to all the users’ private correspondence, legal and illegal, suspect or not.

“Investigations into the alleged criminal conduct of the company operating EncroChat were restarted by the French Gendarmerie Nationale in 2017, after discovering that the phones were regularly found during operations against OCGs. Subsequent investigations established that the company behind the tool was operating via servers in France. Eventually, it was possible to place a technical device to go beyond the encryption technique and obtain access to users’ correspondence.” (Europol)

Because the police estimated that Encrochat was used for criminal activities, it considered it could simply break the encryption, access every user’s private conversation, and then triage what was useful for the investigations and what to throw away. Signal, WhatsApp or Messenger are also used by criminal networks for illegal activity, if the same logic were to apply, the police could simply access all private conversation on those platforms simply because of their suspicions.

The second very troublesome aspect of the Telegram case, is the resuscitation of an old and inapplicable French law that requires to declare “supplying or importing encryption technology” usable for private communication, and to communicate the source code of the tool to the ANSSI, the French cybersecurity agency.

Politico asked various platforms or messenger service about their own compliance with that law, they declined to comment. Frederic Jacobs recalled that trying to figure out what this law actually means was a full-time job.

In the memory of all specialised lawyer this law was never enforced. And some are questioning the fact that this 2004 law is suddenly applied to Telegram, one of the only platform that is actually not a end to end encrypted service.

“The fact that Telegram is not actually an end-to-end encrypted service, despite their misleading marketing, makes their predicament tougher, given they do in fact have access to data which they could use for anti-abuse purposes if they chose,” said Matthew Hodgson to Politico, CEO of Element and co-founder of Matrix, two encrypted communications technologies.

The third issue on Internet surveillance posed by the Telegram case is even more troubling. It is the charge of "refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorized authorities, the information or documents required to carry out and operate the interceptions authorized by law".

This is not exactly the same as refusing to help the authorities in identifying a suspect. This is the application of the Article L871-2 of the French Interior Security Code that stipulates that phone providers must help the police to implement wiretapping, in case it is required by the law. But to apply this obligation to platforms actually implies that platforms would have to give the encryption key allowing interception and surveillance far beyond the initial investigation or lawful interceptions.

France is in a very peculiar situation

Concerning the broader political context of the arrestation, France had no fully acting government at the time. The acting government had resigned after Macron lost the parliamentary elections in June 2024. The president wanted to establish a “political truce” during the summer Olympics in Paris, a time when everybody would simply refrain from doing any politics and from attacking him. It would be difficult to understand what would be the point of dropping a bomb like arresting Pavel Durov in this context. Also, no minister or politician tried to take credit for the arrest.

Another piece of context to consider is that France was on the path of serious attacks against internet freedom in recent month. After riots in suburbs in spring 2023, president Macron proposed to block social networks in case of riots. Facing strong opposition, the French Government stepped back. But in May 2024, during riots in New Caledonia, French Government did impose the blocking of Tik Tok on the whole island. The State of Emergency was declared on the island, and it allows the suspension of a communication service if it is used to commit or to do the apology of “terrorism acts”.

Last but not least of interesting questions surrounding this case: Pavel Durov real name is Paul du Rove, and he is a French Citizen. Durov was granted the French Citizenship and a French passport in 2021, but no one exactly knows how this happened.

French citizenship is not exactly easy to obtain if you are a foreigner. Especially if you do not live in France, has no attached to the country whatsoever and do not really speak the language (although he was able to produce a B1 certificate of French Language, obtained with 92,5/100).

Durov benefited from a special procedure called “the emeritus foreigner”. This procedure allows the government to turn a French speaking foreigner into a French Citizen if it “contributes to France’s influence and economic international prosperity” (in French) This is usually granted by the Foreign Ministry. Le Monde newspaper asked about Durov case to the Foreign ministry, the prime minister office, the digital ministry, sent request for information: nothing can be found and no one is willing to comment. People declined to comment and access to documents were denied invoking the right to privacy.

Le Monde investigation however, shows that Durov and Macron (who can ask the Foreign Ministry to initiate the procedure) had several meetings. In 2018, Pavel Durov met President Macron and did ask for the French Citizenship via “emeritus foreigner” procedure. During this lunch, Durov and Macron discussed the possible (yet completely unlikely) establishment of Telegram in France. Macron is a user of Telegram himself despite the concerns for the security and the fact that leading state figures are supposed to only use the secure (and French) “Olvid” application for their communication.

French Presidency is now embarrassed of this situation, having granted the emeritus citizenship for contributing to France Influence, to someone now accused of complicity in the organized gang distribution of images of minors of a child pornographic nature, drug trafficking, organized gang fraud, criminal conspiracy to commit crimes or misdemeanors…

Macron’s reaction to Durov arrestation was minimal. A short “no comment” style declaration on twitter, swearing this act was judicial power acting alone and there was nothing political in the matter. There was no press conference, big speech, or political use of this event neither by the president, nor by any resigning minister.

Reactions and Comments:

DSA comment: Is it relevant to cooperate?

 “Criminal prosecution is not among the potential sanctions for a breach of the DSA. The DSA does not define what is illegal nor does it establish any criminal offence and can therefore not be invoked for arrests. Only national [or international] laws that define a criminal offence can be invoked,(…) We are closely monitoring the developments related to Telegram and stand ready to cooperate with the French authorities should it be relevant,” a spokesperson says, declining to be named.

Russian Foreign Ministry: Russian Citizen

“In response to the information about Durov's detention, the Russian Embassy in France immediately took the necessary steps to clarify the situation regarding the Russian citizen, despite the absence of any request from the businessman's [Durov’s] representatives” said Russian Foreign Ministry

Elon Musk: Gnagnagna meme

“POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme” (on Twitter, newly “X”)

Tucker Carlson: Russians didn’t do it

“Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member, that locked him away” (found in Washington Post article)

European Commission  : DSA didn’t do it

"The arrest itself of the [Telegram] CEO has nothing to do with the DSA," spokesperson Thomas Regnier

United Arab Emirates: he was one of us

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement early on Tuesday that it was “closely following” Durov’s case and that it had “submitted a request to the French government to provide him with all consular services urgently”. “Caring for citizens, preserving their interests, following up on their affairs, and providing them with all aspects of care are a top priority for the UAE”

What’s goint to happen to Telegram?

Telegram first statement was to say that Telegram “abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act” and that “its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving.”

Pavel Durov is, naturally, more concerned about his own freedom than anything else. He announced moving Telegram to a new era, an era of praise: “This year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise,” he announced on September the 6^th, together with new measures to alter its “people nearby” feature.

On Monday 23 September Durov who still has to remain in France during the investigation, announced new measures to remove problematic content and to comply with the authorities. Durov announced using Artificial Intelligence to detect and remove “problematic content” in Telegram search’s feature.

Durov added that the platform had updated its terms of service and privacy policy to make clear that it would share infringers’ details with authorities – including internet IP addresses and phone numbers – “in response to valid legal requests”.

“We won’t let bad actors jeopardise the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users,” he said, sharing a new light on Telegram total user numbers. (One billion user is a hard number to reach if you don’t have even 45 million users in Europe. But that is a question for a future article.)

Signals and Shadows

1. Here is a PDF file presenting the Paris Prosecutor office and JUNALCO

2. What can be understood from the prosecutor press release https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files/2024-08/2024-08-28%20-%20CP%20TELEGRAM%20mise%20en%20examen.pdf