Telegram outright refuses to comply with any records requests not related to child abuse or terrorism, and even those they often delay and only release phone numbers and IP addresses. They have the data and basically use grand scale legal gamesmanship to avoid data requests. See https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/telegram-gibt-nutzerdat... or even their own official policy https://telegram.org/privacy?setln=it#8-3-law-enforcement-au.... If you actually have the data to turn over you can't do this legally.

Durov's exile is also somewhat tenuous: https://tjournal.ru/tech/52954-durov-back-in-ussr https://lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/

This is sort of forgotten now but there was the time where they censored the Smart Voting bot.

I don't think going after Durov personally is justified, and the charges should just be contempt of court if anything. But I don't trust him.

> Direct involvement with scams? You got to be kidding me. This guy is worth 15 billion USD, he does need to do anything.

I have no knowledge about this and make no assumptions about whether or not he is involved in any kind of financial misconduct - but there are many cases of very rich people doing risky and illegal things to further grow their wealth, despite already having more than enough money.

Someone with $15bn is certainly going to take risks to get more, but running a pedo web ring does not offer that scale of money.

Exploration geophysics (large area mapping in search of resources) loses money hand over fist .. it's like sinking money into lottery tickets .. and yet billionaires routinely dabble in it and a few own companies that take on contract work, lose money and act as tax write offs for other parts of their business.

It's about the contacts and the advance inside knowledge.

Circling back to an alledged "pedo web ring" ala, say, Epstein .. the big pay off wouldn't be connected to "services" and charging access to view materials, the real money (if any was being made) would be in "blackmail" and "quid pro quo" investment infomation etc.

Once a few whales are landed, say past and future POTUS candidates, C-Suites of mega tech companies, bankers, etc. what limit is there on making money from tips in exchange for keeping a few secrets?

I have zero knowledge re: the Telegram founder and any of this, but history is littered with rumours of elite clubs, cosy finnancial arrangements and getting away with the breaking of convential rules. (eg: one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier)