Telegram founder Pavel Durov has told investigative judges in France, where he is accused of a number of offenses related to facilitating organized crime, that he “understood the seriousness of all the allegations”, according to a source close to the matter.
Excerpts from Durov's December interrogation through an interpreter after his August arrest, seen by AFP, show he initially blamed French authorities for failing to warn Telegram of criminal activity. which is charged.
“The French authorities knew my location and my personal Telegram account” including “the office of the president and the French consul in Dubai,” Durov said, also referring to an “agent by the DGSI”, the French domestic intelligence service.
He said the agent said Paris was satisfied with Telegram's cooperation, but that other investigative services had used “the wrong email addresses” to report suspected crimes on the platform.
The 40-year-old said he had done “his best” to take “appropriate” action to deal with such reports.
On December 6, during his first in-depth interrogation, Durov nevertheless admitted that “it was while I was in custody that I realized how serious all the accusations were”.
– Not created 'for criminals' –
The messaging service that Durov founded with his brother in 2013 “was not created to be a platform for criminals”, he said.
“The growth in popularity, the overall increase in the number of our users, meant that there was also an increase in the number of people using Telegram for criminal purposes,” said the born billionaire. in Saint Petersburg.
Durov has several passports including a French one, although he does not speak the language, saying he was granted the nationality by President Emmanuel Macron.
When judges asked whether Telegram checked the identity or documents of users, Durov replied: “No”.
“I think that's true for all messaging services,” he said.
Durov also said that the encryption of some Telegram messages was “standard for the industry” – adding that it was intended to prevent Telegram itself from accessing users' messages and prevent data leakage.
Investigators confronted Durov during his detention with more than a dozen specific cases, ranging from child abuse to drug trafficking, scams, arms sales and the hiring of hitmen.
These crimes, in some organized cases, are at the heart of the complex charges against the leader of the platform.
Durov said he “disagreeed” with the judges' claim that Telegram's ease of use made it much more practical for organized criminals than alternatives such as the dark web.
– 'Effective' measures –
Its “effective” measures against criminal abuse helped remove 15 to 20 million user accounts and up to two million channels or groups from the service every month, he said.
Instead, Durov repeatedly blamed legal authorities or associations for not properly reporting alleged criminal activity.
One such association, America's National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), told investigators that it had made 400 reports to Telegram in 2023 alone.
Durov identified the callers, saying that Telegram had struck deals with both the US agency and a British counterpart.
Referring to both the direct and media reports of abuse of the platform, the investigators asked why Durov had not intervened before his arrest.
He replied that there was “never anything strong” in the newspapers.
Magistrates particularly pressed Durov on Telegram's “People Nearby” feature, which was disabled after his arrest.
People were suspected of using it to provide illegal services using geolocation, such as drug delivery or pimping.
“In most countries, this action is used for good purposes, not for illegal ones,” said Durov.
One judge replied: “France may be unique in terms of gastronomy, but certainly not in terms of criminal matters. “
Dubai-based Telegram announced its first annual profit in December.
But Durov told investigators he was laboring under a $2 billion debt load.
Nevertheless, “we are committed to improving our assessment processes,” he vowed, echoing a pledge he made publicly in September to work more closely with authorities.
Data provided by Telegram suggests that it handed over significantly more user data to national authorities in the third and fourth quarters of 2024 – covering the period of Durov's arrest and immediately after.
“My teams have made a lot of progress,” offering identification information on “more than 10,000 users” in the first six months of last year, Durov said. The platform says that He has 950 million registered accounts.
Durov is expected to face further questioning by magistrates investigating his claims about how content moderation and removal works on Telegram.
gd-tgb/jh/rlp
