According to reports from French media on Saturday, August 24th, Pavel Durov, the CEO and founder of Telegram, was arrested near Paris at an airport. He is being charged with crimes related to the popular messaging application.
Durov, 39 years old, is a French-Russian billionaire. An official who wished to remain anonymous told Agence France-Presse that Durov was detained at Le Bourget airport in the northern part of the capital on Saturday evening.
Reports from Reuters stated that French television news media TF1 TV and BFM TV also cited unnamed sources reporting the arrest of Durov.
TF1 reported on its website that Durov was traveling on a private plane; as part of the initial police investigation, he received an arrest warrant in France. The media reported that Durov, who resides in Dubai, was arrested around 8 p.m. local time after departing from Azerbaijan.
TF1 and BFM both indicated that the focus of the investigation is on Telegram’s lack of moderation, as authorities believe this situation allows criminal activities to take place on Telegram without hindrance.
The encrypted Telegram platform boasts nearly 1 billion users and holds significant influence in Russia, Ukraine, and former Soviet republics.
Telegram did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comments. The French Ministry of the Interior and the police have not made any statements.
A source close to the case told Agence France-Presse that France’s agency responsible for preventing violence against minors, OFMIN, has issued an arrest warrant for Durov. The investigation involves alleged crimes such as fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime, and promoting terrorism.
Durov is accused of failing to take action to curb criminal activities conducted on the Telegram platform. An investigator expressed surprise that Durov, knowing he was wanted, decided to visit Paris.
In 2013, Durov, a Russian national, co-founded Telegram with his brother. In 2014, he left Russia after being ousted from VKontakte, a popular Russian social networking site he co-founded, due to Kremlin pressure to hand over user data, which he refused to do.
In April of this year, Durov told American journalist Tucker Carlson that he left Russia to find a suitable base for his company and has worked in Berlin, London, Singapore, and San Francisco.
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Telegram became a major source of unfiltered (sometimes misleading) content for both the Russian and Ukrainian sides of the war. The platform has been described by some analysts as a virtual battlefield, heavily utilized by the Russian and Ukrainian governments.
Forbes estimates Durov’s wealth to be approximately $15.5 billion.
However, the increasing popularity of Telegram has raised concerns in several European countries, including France, regarding security and data leakage, prompting scrutiny of the platform.