Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is expected to appear in court on Sunday after he was arrested by French police at an airport near Paris for alleged offenses related to his popular messaging app, sources told AFP.
The Franco-Russian billionaire, 39, was arrested at Le Bourget airport north of the French capital on Saturday night, said one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Durov had arrived from Baku, 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 offenses including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime and promoting terrorism, a from the sources.
Durov is accused of failing to take steps to curb criminal use of his platform.
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“Enough with Telegram’s impunity,” one of the investigators said, adding that they were surprised Durov came to Paris knowing he was wanted.
Privacy Platform
The Dubai-based encrypted messaging app has positioned itself as an alternative to US-owned platforms that have been criticized for commercializing users’ personal data.
Telegram is committed to never revealing any information about its users.
In a rare interview with 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 while working at VK, a social network he created before sell. 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”.
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People “love independence. They also love privacy, freedom, (there are) many reasons why someone would switch to Telegram,” Durov told Carlson.
He said at the time that the platform had more than 900 million active users.
Based in the United Arab Emirates, Telegram has been able to shield itself from moderation laws at a time when Western countries are pressuring major platforms to remove illegal content.
Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members, which has led to accusations that it facilitates the viral spread of false information, as well as the spread of neo-Nazi, pedophile, conspiracy and terrorist content by users.
Rival messaging service WhatsApp introduced global limits on messaging in 2019 after it was accused of allowing false information to spread in India that led to lynchings.
Source: AFP