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MOSCOW, Aug 25 – RAPSI. Telegram founder Pavel Durov was detained on Saturday upon arrival in Paris and is expected to appear in court soon on charges related to the messenger’s operation, the French agency LCI reports.
It is specified that the 39-year-old Telegram CEO, who has French citizenship, was detained at Le Bourget Airport, where he arrived from Baku with his assistant on a private jet. He is accused of failing to take measures to prevent the illegal use of the messenger, but this information has not yet been officially confirmed.
The arrest warrant was issued as part of a preliminary investigation at the request of the Office of Minors (Office mineurs / OFMIN), which was created within the structure of the Ministry of the Interior by decree of August 29, 2023. According to the LCI agency, the founder of Telegram was aware that he was wanted.
Following Durov’s arrest, the Russian Embassy in Paris “immediately got to work,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
At the same time, she recalled that there are complaints about the messenger in connection with the technical parameters of the encryption system it uses in many countries. In particular, in Russia, after the so-called Yarovaya Law came into force, a decision was made to block Telegram. Against this background, in 2018, a group of foreign non-governmental organizations, including human rights organizations, called on the Russian authorities to stop creating obstacles to the messenger’s work, stating that the demands made were allegedly unfounded and illegal.
All this time, Durov remained at large, having the opportunity to work on the development of Telegram, noted Zakharova, who is interested in how these same non-governmental organizations will now react to Durov’s detention in France.
Headquartered in Dubai, Telegram is positioned as an alternative to platforms that originated in the US and have been repeatedly accused of commercially exploiting users’ personal data. Telegram, in turn, has pledged never to disclose information about its users.
