Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov
AOP.Press | Corbis | Getty Images
Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of messaging app Telegram, was arrested and detained shortly after arriving on a private jet at Le Bourget airport outside Paris late Saturday, police sources said.
The arrest of the 39-year-old tech billionaire prompted warnings from Moscow to Paris on Sunday that he should be given his rights, and criticism from X owner Elon Musk that it was an attack on freedom of speech in Europe.
There has been no official confirmation of the arrest from France, but French and Russian media have also reported that Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport on a private jet from Azerbaijan.
France's BFM and TF1 reported that Durov, a dual French-UAE national, was arrested as part of a preliminary investigation into what police say may have been a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police that allowed the criminal activity to take place. Reuters' police sources could not confirm this.
Telegram and its senior executives did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Neither did the French Ministry of the Interior, police or the Paris prosecutor's office. French media said Durov could be charged as soon as Sunday.
Dubai-based Telegram was founded by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on VK, a social media platform he sold.
With nearly 1 billion users, the encrypted application is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet republics, positioning it as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.
telegram
Durov, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $15.5 billion, said in April that despite pressure from some governments, the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not be an “actor of geopolitics.”
Durov came up with the idea of an encrypted messaging app as a means of communication when he was under pressure in Russia, and his brother Nikolai designed the encryption.
“I would rather be free than follow someone else's orders,” Durov said in April about leaving Russia and scouting locations for his company, including Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.
Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become a primary source of unfiltered, sometimes graphic and misleading content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.
The platform has become what some analysts call a “virtual battlefield” for the war and is frequently used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government officials, as well as the Russian government.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had sent a letter to Paris requesting to meet with Durov, who it said was a French citizen.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Durov had made a mistake by fleeing Russia and thinking he would never need to cooperate with foreign security services.
Medvedev, who frequently uses Telegram to criticise and insult the West, said Durov wanted to be “an intelligent 'man of the world' who would lead a good life even without a homeland”.
“He miscalculated,” Medvedev said. “Now to all our common enemies he is Russian and therefore unpredictable and dangerous.”
Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the platform refused to comply with a court order to allow national security agencies access to users' encrypted messages.
The move disrupted many third-party services but had little impact on Telegram's use, but the ban sparked large-scale protests in Moscow and drew criticism from NGOs.
“Neutral platform”
Durov, a Dubai resident, was travelling from Azerbaijan when he was arrested at around 8pm (1800 GMT), according to French and Russian media.
Telegram says it is “committed to protecting its users' human rights, including privacy and freedom of speech and assembly.”
Durov has previously accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other US law enforcement agencies of trying to install backdoors into the platform. The FBI has not commented on the allegations.
But Telegram's growing popularity has drawn scrutiny from several European countries, including France, over security and data leak concerns.
“I can't believe in Europe in 2030 you can be executed for liking a meme,” Musk, the billionaire owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said in response to news of Durov's detention.
Outside the French Embassy in Moscow, one protester held a sign that read “Freedom for Pavel Durov.”