The 39-year-old Franco-Russian billionaire, who was arrested by the Air Transport Gendarmerie, He had a French arrest warrant issued by the Office of Minors (OFMIN) of the National Directorate of Criminal Investigation based on a preliminary investigation.
The French justice system maintains that the lack of moderation on Telegram and Pavel Durov’s lack of cooperation with the authorities, along with the tools that the platform offers, such as disposable numbers and cryptographymake him an accomplice to crimes such as drug trafficking, pedophilia and fraud.
Telegram co-founder is expected to appear before an investigating judge in the next few hours when he could face charges including terrorism, drug trafficking, complicity, fraud, money laundering, and distribution of pedophile contentamong other charges, according to French media reports.
Telegram is a instant messaging application for electronic devices launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai as an alternative to the WhatsApp application.
#BREAKING Telegram chief Pavel Durov detained at French airport, official sources say pic.twitter.com/bjJjrTBT4r
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 24, 2024
Based in Dubai and translated into more than 20 languages, if there is one thing that characterizes Telegram, it is synchronization to the cloud permanentlysomething that WhatsApp does not have, so its users can access messages from different devices at the same timeincluding tablets and computers, and share an unlimited number of photos, videos and files (doc, zip, mp3, etc.) up to 2 GB each.
But the platform also offers the creation of bots (automatic messages), the implementation of secret chats that protect the privacy of users with exclusive encryption between the sender and the receiver and a limit of up to 200 thousand people per group.
For all this –Its encryption, the large size of the groups and the possibility of sharing files of any type or size– it is no wonder that the platform has become unique but also an attractive tool for criminals and extremists.
In fact Telegram It has been removed from app stores or blocked by courts on several occasions. for allowing the exchange of illegal content, and in the case of authoritarian regimes, for encouraging protests by opponents.
#Pavel #Durov #cocreator #Telegram #arrested #France