2024-08-25 14:56:00
By Ingrid Melander and Guy Faulconbridge
PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested and detained shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport outside Paris on a private jet late on Saturday, two sources told Reuters.
The arrest of the 39-year-old tech billionaire prompted warnings from Moscow and Paris on Sunday to restore his rights, while Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk also criticised it, saying free speech in Europe was under attack.
France has not officially confirmed the arrest, but a French police source and an unnamed Russian source said Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport from Azerbaijan on a private jet.
A third French police source said Durov, who holds dual French and Emirati citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into his alleged role in enabling multiple crimes due to Telegram’s lack of administrators and its lack of cooperation with police.
“Pavel Durov is a political prisoner and a victim of Western persecution,” Russian MP Maria Butina told Reuters from within the Kremlin’s shadow.
Butina, who served 15 months in the United States for acting as an unregistered Russian agent, said she saw the arrest as part of a Western attempt to control Telegram. News of Durov’s arrest made news in Russia.
Telegram and senior Telegram executives did not respond to multiple requests for comment. France’s interior ministry, police and the Paris prosecutor’s office declined to comment. French media reported that Durov could face indictment on Sunday.
Telegram is based in Dubai and was founded by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on the VK social media platform, which he has now sold.
The crypto app, which has nearly 1 billion users and is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet republics, ranks as one of the main social media platforms after Facebook (NASDAQ:), YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.
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Durov, whose fortune Forbes estimates is $15.5 billion, said in April that some governments had tried to pressure him but that the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “geopolitical player.”
Durov came up with the idea for an encrypted messaging app as a way to communicate when he was under pressure in Russia. His brother Nikolay designed the encryption technology.
“I would rather be free than take orders from anyone,” Durov said in April. He left Russia to look for a headquarters for his company and worked in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Telegram became a major source of unfiltered (and sometimes explicit and misleading) content from both sides about the war and the politics of the conflict.
The platform has become what some analysts call a “virtual battlefield” of war, used extensively by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials, as well as the Russian government.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had sent a letter to the French government requesting access to Durov, but the Russian Foreign Ministry said Durov has French citizenship.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Durov had misjudged by fleeing Russia and thinking he would never have to cooperate with foreign security services.
Medvedev, who frequently uses Telegram to criticize and insult the West, said Durov wanted to be “a brilliant ‘man of the world’ who can live well even without a motherland.”
“He miscalculated. For all our common enemies now, he is Russian – therefore unpredictable and very dangerous,” Medvedev said.
Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after it refused to comply with a court order allowing state security services to access its users’ encrypted messages.
The move caused disruptions to many third-party services but had little impact on Telegram’s availability in Moscow. However, the ban sparked large protests in Moscow and criticism from non-governmental organizations.
‘NEUTRAL PLATFORM’
Durov, who is from Azerbaijan and lives in Dubai, was arrested at around 8 pm (18:00 GMT), according to French and Russian media reports.
Telegram said it is “committed to protecting user privacy and human rights such as freedom of expression and assembly.”
Durov has previously accused the FBI and other law enforcement agencies of trying to install backdoors on the platform. The FBI has not yet commented on the allegations.
However, Telegram’s growing popularity has sparked concern in several European countries, including France, due to concerns about security and data breaches.
Musk, the billionaire owner of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said after reports of Durov’s detention: “It’s 2030 in Europe and you can be executed for liking a meme.”
Outside the French Embassy in Moscow, a lone protester held a sign that read “Freedom for Pavel Durov”.
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