Telegram Founder Charged With Wide Range of Crimes in France

Pavel Durov, who was arrested near Paris over the weekend as part of a broad investigation into criminal activity on the platform, was also barred from leaving the country.

Pavel Durov, the entrepreneur who founded the online communications tool Telegram, was charged on Wednesday in France with a wide range of crimes related to illicit activity on the app and barred from leaving the country.

It was a rare move by legal authorities to hold a top technology executive personally liable for the behavior of users on a major messaging platform, escalating the debate over the role of technology companies in online speech and the limits of their responsibility.

Mr. Durov, 39, who was detained by French authorities on Saturday, was placed under formal investigation on a range of charges, including complicity in managing an online platform to enable illegal transactions; complicity in crimes such as enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud; and a refusal to cooperate with law enforcement.

Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that Mr. Durov had been ordered to pay bail of 5 million euros, or about $5.5 million, and was released but must check in at a police station twice a week.

Telegram has featured in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of replies to requests for cooperation from prosecutors, Ms Beccuau said.

Prosecutors around France, as well as legal authorities in Belgium and other European countries, “have shared the same observation,” she said, leading organized crime prosecutors to open an investigation in February on the “potential criminal liability of executives at this messaging platform.”