Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been released from French police authority, where he faces his first court appearance and potential indictment.

Quick Take

  • Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been released from French police authority.
  • He now faces his first court appearance and potential indictment, according to a report.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been released from French police authority and will appear in court, where he faces a potential indictment, according to AP News.

The move comes after Durov was arrested in France on Aug. 24 related to Durov providing cryptography tools and services — i.e., Telegram — to criminals for money laundering, child pornography and drug trafficking amid a broader cybercrime investigation.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that between 2017 and 2018, Durov not only purportedly met with French President Emmanuel Macron to move Telegram to France and grant Durov French citizenship but that French spies allegedly collaborated with the United Arab Emirates to hack Durov's phone.

Earlier on Wednesday, Telegram's blockchain platform The Open Network (TON) was down for about six hours but has since reinstated block production. Its native token, Toncoin, traded at $5.53 after experiencing a 1.25% increase in the past 24 hours, according to The Block's price page.

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About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.