FRANCE: Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov is expected to appear in court Sunday after being arrested by French police at an airport near Paris for alleged offences related to his popular messaging app.
The Franco-Russian billionaire, 39, was detained at Le Bourget airport north of the French capital on Saturday evening, one of the sources said,
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the sources claimed that the 39-year-old Franco-Russian billionaire had been detained at Le Bourget airport, north of the French capital, on Saturday night.
Another source who was familiar with the circumstances, stated that Durov had traveled from Baku, in Azerbaijan to France.
Due to one of the sources, Durov was the subject of an arrest warrant issued by France’s OFMIN, an institution entrusted with preventing violence against minors, as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, criminal organizations, and encouragement of terrorism.
Durov has been accused with not doing enough to curtail illegal activity on his platform.
One of the investigators stated, “Enough of Telegram’s impunity,” and added that they were astonished Durov traveled to Paris knowing he was wanted.Durov had arrived from Baku, in Azerbaijan, another source close to the case said.
France’s OFMIN, an office tasked with preventing violence against minors, had issued an arrest warrant for Durov in a preliminary investigation into alleged offences including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organised crime and promotion of terrorism, one of the sources said.
Durov has been accused of failing to take action to curtailing the criminal use of his platform. “Enough of Telegram’s impunity,” said one of the investigators, adding they were surprised Durov came to Paris knowing he was a wanted man.
The encrypted messaging app, based in Dubai, has positioned itself as an alternative to US-owned platforms, which have been criticised for their commercial exploitation of users’ personal data. Telegram has committed to never disclosing any information about its users.
In a rare interview given to right-wing talk show host Tucker Carlson in April, Durov said he got the idea to launch an encrypted messaging app after coming under pressure from the Russian government when working at VK, a social network he created before selling it and leaving Russia in 2014.
He said he then tried to settle in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco before choosing Dubai, which he praised for its business environment and “neutrality”.
People “love the independence. They also love the privacy, the freedom, (there are) a lot of reasons why somebody would switch to Telegram,” Durov told Carlson. He said at the time that the platform had more than 900 million active users.
