Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody.
The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he should be accorded his rights and criticism from X owner Elon Musk who said that free speech in Europe was under attack.
Two French police sources and one Russian source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport on a private jet from Azerbaijan.
Though there has been no official French comment on the arrest, French news channel franceinfo said that Durov was still in custody on Monday and that he could remain in custody for up to four days.
Telegram, in a short statement released after midnight Paris time, gave no details of the arrest but said the Dubai-based company abided by European Union laws and its moderation was “within industry standards and constantly improving”.
Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a third French police source said.
A cybersecurity gendarmerie unit and France’s national anti-fraud police unit are leading the investigation, the source said, adding that the investigative judge was specialised in organised crime.
Russian lawmaker Maria Butina, who spent 15 months in U.S. prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent, said Durov “is a political prisoner – a victim of a witch-hunt by the West.” .
Telegram, based in Dubai, was founded by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has sold.
The encrypted application, with close to one billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.
Durov is estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of $15.5 billion.
Telegram says it “is committed to protecting user privacy and human rights such as freedom of speech and assembly.”
Durov has previously accused U.S. law enforcement agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of seeking to get a backdoor into the platform. The FBI has not commented on those allegations.
Telegram’s increasing popularity, however, has prompted scrutiny from several countries in Europe, including France, on security and data breach concerns.
Musk, billionaire owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said after reports of Durov’s detention: “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme.”
Outside the French embassy in Moscow, a lone protester held up a sign reading: “Liberté pour Pavel Durov”.
