Breaking: Russia Charges Telegram CEO Pavel Durov with Abetting Terrorism, Issues Arrest Warrant

Russia has charged Telegram ​founder and CEO Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activities. An international arrest warrant is also issued against the Russian-born entrepreneur, causing Gram (previously Toncoin) token to tumble more than 3%.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Faces Terrorism Charges in Russia

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) charged Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activities and placed him on an international wanted list, Sputnik reported on July 29.

FSB claimed the charges are related to Telegram’s failure to remove extremist content, child pornography and channels used by Ukrainian intel for sabotage.

The agency said it is “used by Ukrainian ​special services and by terrorist and extremist organisations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage ​and terrorism, mass killings, and cyber-fraud operations within ​the Russian Federation.”

The move comes amid FSB and global pressure on the encrypted messaging app, which has billions of users despite restrictions. Russia has recently tried to restrict Telegram’s use after Pavel Durov denied sharing user data or encryption keys.

French ​authorities have also investigated Pavel Durov over allegations that Telegram failed to adequately counter criminal activity on the platform. The prosecutors raised concerns that Telegram ​did not cooperate enough with ​law enforcement requests.

However, Durov denies wrongdoing. He claimed that maintaining Telegram’s privacy policies and refusal to grant backdoor access are matters of strict principle.

GRAM Token Falls amid Arrest Warrant

GRAM (previously Toncoin) plunges more than 3% in the past few hours, extending the fall to 12% in a week. The price is currently trading at $1.40, with a 24-hour low and high of $1.39 and $1.46, respectively.

Furthermore, trading volume has increased by almost 70% over the last 24 hours, as traders moved in response to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest warrant. Recently, Durov revealed major Telegram network updates and a drop in transaction fees to almost zero.

CoinGlass data showed massive selling in the derivatives market. At the time of writing, the total GRAM futures open interest tumbled 8% to $91.24 million in the last 24 hours.

The 4-hour GRAM futures OI fell 5.60%, with more than 2% drop on Binance and 6% fall on Bybit. This signals negative sentiment among derivatives traders.

With such events driving sudden market fluctuations, active speculators frequently turn to the best crypto leverage trading platforms to hedge their spot exposure.