News

An indictment filed in Paris against Pavel Durov, the 39-year-old, Russian-born co-creator of Telegram, draws attention to what French authorities describe as the Emirati-based social-media and encrypted-messaging platform's facilitation of transnational organized crime. On Aug. 28, prosecutors in the French capital unsealed 12 preliminary charges against Durov, accusing him of doing nothing to address the platform's purportedly growing role in facilitating fraud, drug trafficking and the dissemination of child pornography. Prosecutors further charged Durov with laundering money and barred him from leaving France. The case stems from Telegram's refusal to supply requested details to law enforcement, a stance that, when...