Telegram messaging app CEO Durov reportedly arrested in France

 Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and proprietor of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport exterior Paris shortly after touchdown on a personal jet late on Saturday and positioned in custody, a police supply stated.

The arrest of the 39-year-old expertise billionaire prompted on Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he ought to be accorded his rights and criticism from X proprietor Elon Musk who stated that free speech in Europe was below assault.

There was no official affirmation from France of the arrest, which French and Russian media have additionally reported, saying that Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport on a personal jet from Azerbaijan.

France’s BFM and TF1 stated that Durov, who has twin French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was arrested as a part of a preliminary police investigation into permitting potential criminality because of a scarcity of moderators on Telegram and a scarcity of cooperation with police. Reuters’ police supply couldn’t affirm that.

Telegram and senior Telegram managers didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark. The French Inside Ministry, police and Paris prosecutor’s workplace had no remark. Durov faces potential indictment on Sunday, in keeping with French media.

Telegram, based mostly in Dubai, was based by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after he refused to adjust to calls for to close down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has bought.

The encrypted software, with near one billion customers, is especially influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the previous Soviet Union. It’s ranked as one of many main social media platforms after Fb, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.

Durov, who’s estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of $15.5 billion, stated in April some governments had sought to stress him however the app ought to stay a “impartial platform” and never a “participant in geopolitics.”

Durov got here up with the thought of an encrypted messaging app as a option to talk whereas he was below stress in Russia. His youthful brother, Nikolai, designed the encryption.

“I’d fairly be free than to take orders from anybody,” Durov stated in April about his exit from Russia and seek for a house for his firm which included stints in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has change into the principle supply of unfiltered – and typically graphic and deceptive – content material from each side concerning the battle and the politics surrounding the battle.

The platform has change into what some analysts name ‘a digital battlefield’ for the battle, used closely by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his officers, in addition to the Russian authorities.

Russia’s international ministry stated it had despatched a notice to Paris demanding entry to Durov, though it stated that he had French citizenship.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated that Durov had misjudged by fleeing Russia and considering that he would by no means should cooperate with the safety companies overseas.

Medvedev, who usually makes use of Telegram to criticize and insult the West, stated Durov needed to be a “good ‘man of the world’ who lives splendidly with no Motherland.”

“He miscalculated,” Medvedev stated. “For all our widespread enemies now, he’s Russian – and due to this fact unpredictable and harmful.”

Russia started blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to adjust to a courtroom order to grant state safety companies entry to its customers’ encrypted messages.

The motion interrupted many third-party companies, however had little impact on the supply of Telegram there. The ban order, nevertheless, sparked mass protests in Moscow and criticism from NGOs.

Dubai-based Durov had been travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at round 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), in keeping with French and Russian media.

Telegram says it “is dedicated to defending consumer privateness and human rights corresponding to freedom of speech and meeting.”

Durov has beforehand accused U.S. regulation enforcement businesses such because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of in search of to get a backdoor into the platform. The FBI has not commented on these allegations.

Telegram’s growing recognition, nevertheless, has prompted scrutiny from a number of nations in Europe, together with France, on safety and information breach issues.

Musk, billionaire proprietor of X, the social media platform previously often called Twitter, stated after experiences of Durov’s detention: “It is 2030 in Europe and also you’re being executed for liking a meme.”

Outdoors the French embassy in Moscow, a lone protester held up an indication studying: “Liberté pour Pavel Durov.”