According to TF1 TV and BFM TV, who cited unnamed sources, Pavel Durov, the creator and CEO of the messaging app Telegram and a Russian-French millionaire, was detained on Saturday night at the Bourget airport south of Paris.
According to TF1’s website, Durov was traveling in his private plane. It also stated that he was the subject of a French arrest warrant as part of an initial police probe.
According to TF1 and BFM, the police believed that the absence of moderators on Telegram allowed illegal conduct to continue unchecked, and this was the main focus of the inquiry.
It is conceivable that Durov may be charged on Sunday, according to French media.
With nearly one billion users, the encrypted messaging app Telegram holds significant sway in Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union’s member states. It comes in second place among the main social media networks, behind WeChat, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok.
Remarks from Telegram were not immediately available after Reuters reached out to them. Both the French police and Interior Ministry remained silent.
Durov, a Russian native, and his brother launched Telegram in 2013. After defying orders from the authorities to close down opposition communities on his sold social networking platform VKontakte, he departed Russia in 2014.
When asked in April about his decision to leave Russia and look for a new home for his business, which includes stays in Berlin, London, Singapore, and San Francisco, Durov told American journalist Tucker Carlson, “I’d rather be independent than submit to authority.”
Telegram has emerged as the primary platform for uncensored, sometimes explicit, and sometimes inaccurate communication from both sides regarding the war and the politics underlying it, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The site, which is heavily utilized by both the Russian government and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his officials, has evolved into what some experts refer to as “a virtual battlefield” for the conflict.
Telegram, a messaging app that lets users avoid government surveillance, has emerged as one of the only locations where Russians can get unbiased news about the conflict, since the Kremlin tightened its restrictions on independent media after Ukraine was invaded.
The Russian foreign ministry urged Western non-governmental organizations to seek Durov’s release and stated that its mission in Paris was providing clarification on the situation surrounding him.
After Telegram disregarded a court order to provide access to its users’ encrypted messages to state security services, Russia started blocking the app in 2018.
Although several third-party services were disrupted, Telegram’s availability was largely unaffected. NGOs criticized the ban order, nevertheless, and it also triggered large-scale protests in Moscow.
“Platform neutrality”
TF1 said that Durov, a resident of Dubai, was detained at approximately 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) after departing Azerbaijan.
Forbes valued Durov’s wealth at $15.5 billion. He claimed that despite pressure from some governments, the app should continue to be a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics.”
However, because to security and data breach worries, several European nations, including France, have begun to closely monitor Telegram as its popularity grows.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna, along with a number of other Russian lawmakers swiftly charged on Sunday that France was functioning as a dictatorship. This accusation is similar to the one Moscow received when it attempted to outlaw Telegram in 2018 and placed demands on Durov in 2014.
According to Ulyanov on X, “Some gullible people are still unaware that visiting nations that are moving toward far more dictatorial cultures is unsafe, even if those nations are somewhat prominent in the global information sphere.”
Following news of Durov’s arrest, billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of the social media company X (previously known as Twitter), declared, “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme.”
Following the reports, Republican Donald Trump received the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who on Friday dropped out of the race for president of the United States and stated on X that it is “more important than ever” to preserve free expression.
On Sunday at noon, a number of Russian bloggers called for demonstrations outside French embassies worldwide.