Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at the Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening. French media outlets TF1 and BFM TV, citing unnamed sources, reported that Durov was detained upon his arrival in France on a private jet. Police added that the lack of moderators on Telegram was the main focus of their investigation and that they believed this circumstance allowed illegal activities to continue on the chat platform unchecked.
Remarks from Telegram were not immediately available after Reuters reached out to them. Both the French police and Interior Ministry remained silent. In an attempt to "clarify" the situation, the Russian Foreign Ministry asked whether non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the West would push for his release.
About Pavel Durov Born in Russia, 39-year-old Durov is the founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram, which faces competition from Facebook's WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat. In less than a year, the platform hopes to reach one billion monthly active users. Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union's republics all rely on Telegram.
It is now a vital source of information about Russia's conflict in Ukraine, greatly utilised by officials in both Moscow and Kyiv. "A virtual battlefield" for the war, as some analysts have dubbed the program. Forbes estimated Durov's wealth to be $15.
5 billion. In 2014, he fled Russia when he refused to comply with orders to close oppositio.