Russian Overseas Ministry is working to ‘make clear’ the detention of the 39-year-old founder and CEO of Telegram.
Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, has been arrested at Bourget airport outdoors Paris for alleged offences associated to his messaging app, French media reviews.
Native sources mentioned on Sunday that Durov, 39, had been travelling on his personal jet from Azerbaijan and {that a} French arrest warrant focused him as a part of a preliminary investigation.
The offences levelled at Durov by France’s OFMIN, an company that offers with the prevention of violence in opposition to minors, embrace fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, and organised crime, based on the AFP information company, which quoted officers talking on situation of anonymity.
The Franco-Russian billionaire can also be accused of failing to take motion in opposition to the dangerous use of Telegram.
Durov faces potential indictment on Sunday, based on French media.
TF1 TV and BFM TV, each quoting unidentified sources, mentioned the investigation was targeted on a scarcity of moderators and that police thought-about that this case allowed felony exercise to go on undeterred on the messaging app.
One of many investigators instructed AFP they had been shocked Durov entered France regardless of the warrant in opposition to him, including “sufficient of Telegram’s impunity”.
With its fascinating encryption options, Telegram, whose consumer base is shut to 1 billion, was created by Durov and his brother in 2013 in Russia.
He fled the nation in 2014 and travelled throughout the globe to seek for a house for his firm, together with the German capital, Berlin, and San Francisco in the US.
Russia-Ukraine struggle
After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram turned the primary supply of unfiltered and typically graphic content material from each fighters.
The app is closely utilized by Russian and Ukrainian officers, together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Nevertheless, resulting from Telegram’s growing recognition, a number of international locations in Europe, together with France, have scrutinised the app resulting from safety and information breach issues.
Russia’s consultant to worldwide organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, accused France of performing as a “totalitarian” society.
“Some naive individuals nonetheless don’t perceive that in the event that they play roughly seen position in worldwide data area it isn’t secure for them to go to international locations which transfer in direction of far more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov wrote on X.
A number of Russian bloggers have known as for protests outdoors French embassies worldwide.
Tech mogul and billionaire Elon Musk additionally criticised Durov’s arrest, saying, “It’s 2030 in Europe, and also you’re being executed for liking a meme.”
Telegram didn’t instantly reply and the French Ministry of the Inside and police had no remark, the Reuters information company mentioned.
Russia, which has prior to now tried to ban Telegram, mentioned it was taking steps to “make clear” Durov’s scenario, the TASS information company reported.
