Pavel Durov, co-founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France on Saturday evening, in line with French media.
Sources told the TV channel TF1 that he was arrested at Bourget Airport outside Paris after arriving from Azerbaijan on his private jet.
The report further stated that as a part of a police investigation, an arrest warrant was issued as a result of an absence of moderators on Telegram, which enabled criminal activities.
Telegram didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from Assets.
Durov was born in Russia and lives in Dubai, where Telegram relies. He holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates.
He and his brother Nikolai founded Telegram in 2013, but left Russia in 2014 after refusing to offer encrypted user data to Russian intelligence and refusing to shut down opposition communities on a separate social network that he later sold.
He moved to Dubai in 2017 and have become a French citizen in 2021. in line with Forbeswhich estimates Durov’s net price at $15.5 billion.
Telegram has around 900 million lively users and is having fun with growing popularity as a technique to communicate more securely via encrypted messages.
Although Telegram is used each in conflict zones and by militant groups, Durov explained that Telegram is a neutral platform and never a “geopolitical actor.”
