The CEO and millionaire creator of the messaging service Telegram, Pavel Durov, was detained on Saturday night at the Bourget airport south of Paris, according to French local media that quoted anonymous sources.
Police added that the lack of moderators on Telegram was the main focus of their investigation and that they believed this circumstance allowed illegal activities to continue on the chat platform unchecked.
Remarks from Telegram were not immediately available after Reuters reached out to them. Both the French police and Interior Ministry remained silent. In an attempt to “clarify” the situation, the Russian Foreign Ministry asked whether non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the West would push for his release.
The 39-year-old Russian-born Durov is the creator and proprietor of the free messaging app Telegram, which rivals Facebook’s WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat for users. In less than a year, the platform hopes to reach one billion monthly active users.
- Telegram has a significant impact on the former Soviet Union’s republics, including Russia and Ukraine. It is now a vital source of information about Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, greatly utilized by officials in both Moscow and Kyiv. “A virtual battlefield” for the war, as some analysts have dubbed the program.
- In 2014, Durov—whose net worth Forbes put at $15.5 billion—left Russia after defying orders to close opposition communities on the social media network VKontakte, which he had sold.
- The French and Russian media report that Durov obtained French citizenship in 2021. In 2017, he and Telegram relocated to Dubai.
- In April, after leaving Russia to look for a new home for his company, which involved stays in Berlin, London, Singapore, and San Francisco, Durov told US journalist Tucker Carlson, “I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone.
- Durov stated in the same interview that he wished to be free and that, aside from cash or Bitcoin, he had no significant assets like real estate, aircraft, or boats.
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