{"id":26471,"date":"2025-08-25T13:40:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=26471"},"modified":"2025-08-26T10:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T07:31:09","slug":"pavel-durov-calls-his-arrest-in-france-a-legal-absurdity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/pavel-durov-calls-his-arrest-in-france-a-legal-absurdity\/","title":{"rendered":"Pavel Durov Calls His Arrest in France a &#8216;Legal Absurdity&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to Pavel Durov, a year after his arrest in France, the investigation has not uncovered any evidence of his guilt or any wrongdoing by Telegram.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/telegram.org\/js\/telegram-widget.js?22\" data-telegram-post=\"durov\/447\" data-width=\"100%\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cArresting the head of a major platform for the actions of its users is not only unprecedented but also legally and logically absurd,\u201d he noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The messenger&#8217;s creator emphasized that he must return to the country every 14 days, despite the absence of an appeal date. According to him, the detention has only damaged France&#8217;s reputation.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Context\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Durov was <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogfeed\/56481\">detained<\/a> at Paris airport on August 24, 2024. A few days later, the court <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/pavel-durov-placed-under-judicial-supervision-with-e5-million-bail\">released<\/a> him on bail of \u20ac5 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The founder of Telegram was charged with 12 counts, including fraud, aiding money laundering, and distributing child sexual abuse material through the platform. French authorities claimed that Durov ignored their requests, thus failing to counteract criminals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In March of this year, the programmer was <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogfeed\/60326\">allowed<\/a> to leave France for trips to Dubai, where Telegram&#8217;s headquarters is located. The rules remain strict. Visiting other countries requires separate permission from a French judge.<\/p>\n<p>The criminal case against Durov remains in the preliminary investigation stage. In July, he was interrogated for the third time since his detention.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In February, the official representative of the Paris prosecutor&#8217;s office, Ma\u00eflys de R\u00e9c, <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/pavel-durovs-case-unlikely-to-reach-french-courts-before-2026\">stated<\/a> that the transfer of materials to the judicial authorities is expected no earlier than a year or even later.<\/p>\n<p>According to Durov himself, subsequent legal proceedings could drag on for several more years. The messenger&#8217;s founder faces 10 years in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Community and Market Reaction\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Durov&#8217;s arrest attracted the attention of the crypto community. Within a few days, an open letter to the French government calling for the release of the Telegram founder <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogfeed\/56519\">gathered<\/a> 2.3 million signatures.<\/p>\n<p>The detention of the programmer was criticized by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. He expressed concern about the \u201cfuture of software freedom\u201d in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The native token of the TON ecosystem, Toncoin, reacted with a decline. According to CoinGecko, its price has fallen by 43.9% over the past year. At the time of writing, the asset is trading at $3.1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"601\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Snimok-ekrana-2025-08-25-v-13.38.53-1024x601.png\" alt=\"\u0421\u043d\u0438\u043c\u043e\u043a \u044d\u043a\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0430 2025-08-25 \u0432 13.38.53\" class=\"wp-image-264505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Snimok-ekrana-2025-08-25-v-13.38.53-1024x601.png 1024w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Snimok-ekrana-2025-08-25-v-13.38.53-300x176.png 300w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Snimok-ekrana-2025-08-25-v-13.38.53-768x451.png 768w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Snimok-ekrana-2025-08-25-v-13.38.53-1536x902.png 1536w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Snimok-ekrana-2025-08-25-v-13.38.53-2048x1202.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hourly chart of TON\/USDT on Binance. Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/ru.tradingview.com\/chart\/?symbol=BINANCE%3ATONUSDT\">TradingView<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In November 2024, Telegram&#8217;s financial reports provided to investors <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/toncoin-transactions-provide-financial-cushion-for-telegram\">indicated<\/a> that Durov&#8217;s detention did not have a \u201csignificant impact\u201d on the messenger&#8217;s operations. This was aided by the rising value of cryptocurrencies on the company&#8217;s balance sheet.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, former president of TON Foundation and CEO of TVM Ventures, Steve Yun, <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogfeed\/60777\">stated<\/a> that The Open Network has become more independent from Durov. Despite the issues, the prospects remain favorable, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Back in April, the founder of Telegram <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogfeed\/61063\">criticized<\/a> European authorities for promoting a law on so-called backdoor end-to-end encryption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A year after Pavel Durov&#8217;s arrest in France, the investigation has not found evidence of his guilt or any wrongdoing by Telegram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"According to him, the detention only damaged the country's reputation.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1423,723,1422],"class_list":["post-26471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-pavel-durov","tag-telegram","tag-toncoin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"269","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"According to him, the detention only damaged the country's reputation.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26473,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26471\/revisions\/26473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}