According to Tass, citing AFP, a Paris court granted Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, permission to leave France as part of a broader review of his activities in the country. The ruling allowed the entrepreneur to depart for Dubai while investigators continued their examination of Telegram’s operations and governance in France. While the decision marks a procedural milestone, officials stressed that the probe is not concluded and that oversight will persist as the case moves forward.
The separation was approved by the French judiciary, allowing Durov to exit while prosecutors maintain oversight of the inquiry. The court framed the decision as a careful balance between letting a prominent defendant move freely and preserving the integrity of a high‑profile review into how a globally used messaging service is governed and monitored for compliance with the law.
Earlier, on August 24 of the preceding year, Durov was detained upon arrival at Le Bourget Airport in France aboard a special aircraft. He had traveled to France from Azerbaijan. Prosecutors accuse him of six offenses connected to the operation of Telegram, including claims that the platform may have been used to facilitate illegal transactions. The case centers on whether Telegram’s policies and actions could be linked to criminal activity within France, and it underscores the broader debate over how multinational platforms are held to account when their services cross borders.
On December 6, 2024, Durov testified in a Paris court as part of the ongoing investigation. Prosecutors sought to determine whether there was any direct or indirect connection between Telegram’s operations and illicit activities, but the specifics of the inquiry remained undisclosed in court records and the discussion reflected the ongoing sensitivity of cross‑border enforcement in tech governance.
At a hearing on January 18, Durov pledged to strengthen moderation on Telegram’s cross‑platform messenger app. He asserted that Telegram serves tens of millions of users worldwide and that its moderation framework is designed to uphold laws and protect users. He noted that in the past six months the service cooperated with authorities, resulting in the transfer of more than ten thousand user data requests to law enforcement agencies around the world, a figure that illustrates the growing cooperation between digital platforms and officials across jurisdictions.
Earlier coverage also touched on a separate matter involving Durov that related to a gaming reference, widely reported but not pertaining to the current French proceedings. The broader context remains the international scrutiny of how large messaging platforms handle compliance, privacy, and cooperation with law enforcement, highlighting ongoing questions about accountability in a connected world and the responsibilities of platform operators when operations span multiple legal regimes.