Aug. 25 (UPI) — Telegram's chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested by French police on Saturday night after landing in a private jet at Le Bourget airport north of Paris.
Durov, a 39-year-old billionaire, faces an arrest warrant for alleged crimes related to his messaging app, which has more than 900 million users. Authorities say Durov is accused of failing to take measures to curb criminal use of Telegram, including drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud.
He allegedly failed to cooperate with law enforcement and neglected to moderate the site.
Durov, who was born in Russia and lives in Dubai, has dual UAE and French nationality.
He founded Telegram in 2013 and left Russia a year later after failing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the social media platform VKontakte.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram asking whether the government was staying silent about Durov's arrest after Western human rights NGOs criticised Russia's decision in 2018 to “create obstacles” to Telegram's activity on Russian soil.
Telegram ranks behind social media app X, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, described the news as the latest example of “dangerous times” and listed the actions of various countries.
“Freedom of speech is under attack around the world. The time to fight is now. If they win, there will be no turning back,” he wrote.
His message was included among information about SpaceX, which he owns.
Robert F. Kennedy, an independent presidential candidate who endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, wrote in X that “the need to protect free speech has never been more urgent.”
Actor William Shatner celebrated Durov's arrest.
“The CEO of @telegram was arrested in France today for failing to moderate the platform. Good thing they're doing nothing to prevent scams and fraud. I'm sick of scammers using that platform to impersonate me,” he wrote.