As the high-stakes criminal investigation into Telegram nears its second year with no resolution in sight, French authorities have again summoned Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov for questioning. Durov spent around six hours being questioned at the Paris Judicial Tribunal on Wednesday, local media reported, citing law enforcement sources. He's allowed to travel internationally, and to live at his home in Dubai - though he's agreed specific judicial supervision rules, part of which is to periodically return to France when summoned.
It marked the fourth time the tech entrepreneur has been interrogated as part of the ongoing investigation, stretching back to his initial arrest in August 2024 at a Paris airport. He was soon after indicted on a dozen assorted charges ranging from complicity in illicit platform activity to non-cooperation with state authorities.
Durov’s legal team confirmed the questioning to AFP, slamming the lack of progress by French prosecutors, decrying that "almost two years after the indictment of Pavel Durov, there is still no evidence to establish the validity of the charges."
And Telegram itself didn't hold back, releasing a statement which reads: "The only change since Durov’s detention in France is that French authorities have started properly drafting requests to Telegram,” the social media platform said separately.
Durov was originally banned from leaving the country, yet the travel restrictions imposed over the case were ultimately lifted, after he complied with court-ordered conditions.
While the French government position has been that Telegram's previous lax cooperation with authorities and lack of restrictions on the app have resulted in extremism and child abuse, there's been plenty of evidence that authorities are seeking to exploit it for surveillance and overreach.
As an example, Durov in 2025 in a viral post on X revealed that French authorities approached him through an intermediary, demanding Telegram remove several Moldovan channels.
While Telegram did take down some accounts at the time that violated its policies, Durov alleged the plot thickened when the intermediary relayed a shady offer: French intelligence promised to "put in a good word" with the judge overseeing his case if expanded cooperation.
"This was a blatant attempt to manipulate justice," Durov wrote, slamming the move as either interference in his legal case or a ploy to meddle in Moldova's elections. When a second list of "problematic" channels surfaced, the mogul said that nearly all were legitimate, with no violations of Telegram’s rules.
"We refused to comply," the mogul said. "Telegram stands for free speech. We will not remove content for political reasons, and I’ll keep exposing every attempt to bully our platform."
Moldova has remained another classic case of a small Eastern European country and former Soviet republic which has been at the center of a pro-EU vs. Russian interests tug-of-war. Durov has continued to slam the whole case against him as a "legal absurdity."