Telegram app founder Durov detained in France

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was detained on Saturday evening at Le Bourget airport in the Paris suburbs.

Source: French TV channel TF1; French newspaper Le Figaro

Details: Durov was reportedly detained at around 20:00 on Saturday evening [21:00 Kyiv time – ed.] when he stepped off his private jet onto the runway at Le Bourget airport. The 39-year-old Russian with a French passport was accompanied by his bodyguard and a woman.

Durov, who is on the wanted list in France, had arrived from Azerbaijan. France had previously issued a search warrant for him.

Investigators believe that Durov's lack of cooperation with law enforcement agencies, as well as the tools offered by Telegram, make him an accessory to drug trafficking, paedophile crimes and fraud, the publication said.

In France, Durov is accused of failing to take action against the criminal use of Telegram messaging by his followers, failing to moderate the service and failing to cooperate with the investigation.

"Enough with Telegram's impunity," said one of the investigators, who was surprised that the billionaire, knowing he was wanted in France, decided to come to Paris anyway. "Perhaps because of a sense of impunity," suggested one of the sources close to the case.

It is noted that Durov is due to appear before an investigating judge on Saturday evening ahead of a possible indictment on Sunday for a number of crimes.

It is virtually certain that he will be remanded in custody pending trial following the indictment, the publication said.

Background:

• Launched in 2013 by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai, Telegram is a service with end-to-end message encryption and which is headquartered in Dubai. It has positioned itself against US platforms that have been criticised for commercially exploiting personal data. Telegram's management team has promised never to disclose any information about its users.
• In an interview last April in Dubai, Durov described how he came up with the idea to launch the encrypted messaging service after coming under intense pressure from the Russian authorities during the founding of VKontakte, the social network he created before selling it and leaving Russia in 2014.
• Telegram has sometimes been accused of increasing the viral potential of false information and spreading hateful, neo-Nazi, paedophile, conspiratorial or terrorist content.

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