Arrested on Saturday evening in the airport terminal at Le Bourget, north of Paris, Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who holds Russian, French and Emirati nationality, had come from Baku in Azerbaijan and was due to spend at least the evening in Paris, where he had planned to have dinner.
On Sunday, the entrepreneur is expected to be presented to the courts in Paris.
A search warrant had been issued against Pavel Durov by French investigators for various offences involving his encrypted messaging service, ranging from fraud to drug trafficking, cyber-harassment, organized crime, apology for terrorism and fraud, according to a source close to the case consulted by the AFP.
The French justice system has accused the company of failing to act against criminal use of its messaging service by its subscribers, notably through a lack of moderation and collaboration with investigators.
The French Office for Combating Violence against Minors (Ofmin) had issued a search warrant for Pavel Durov as the coordinating unit in a preliminary investigation into offences ranging from fraud to drug trafficking, cyber-stalking, organized crime, apology for terrorism and fraud, explained one of the sources close to the case.
When contacted on several occasions by AFP, the Paris public prosecutor’s office refused on Sunday morning to give any information “as things stand, as this is a case being investigated.”
Numerous international reactions
Pavel Durov’s arrest has prompted numerous international reactions. “#FreePavel”, posted platform boss Elon Musk on X (ex-Twitter), before publishing a new message in French saying ”Liberté. Liberté! Liberté?”
Former independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has just rallied behind Donald Trump, said on X that “the need to protect free speech has never been more urgent.”
The Russian embassy in Paris on Sunday accused the French authorities of “refusing to cooperate” with Moscow after the arrest in France of the boss of the Telegram encrypted messenger, Pavel Durov.
“We immediately asked the French authorities to explain the reasons for this detention and demanded that his rights be protected and that he be granted consular access. To this day, the French side still refuses to cooperate on this issue,” the Russian embassy in Paris accused, quoted by the Ria Novosti news agency.
Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that Moscow had requested consular access to the 39-year-old billionaire, pointing out that since he also had French nationality, “France considers this to be his main nationality.”
In a previous message on Telegram, Ms. Zakharova had stated that “the Russian embassy in Paris immediately went to work, as is customary” in cases of detention of Russian citizens abroad.
Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatiana Moskalkova, assured that his arrest was “an attempt to shut down Telegram, an internet platform where one can learn the truth about events unfolding in the world”.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, for his part, assured that he had warned Pavel Durov, during a meeting “a long time ago”, that he would have “serious problems in all countries” due to his uncompromising stance on user privacy.
“He made a bad calculation. For all our now-common enemies, he is Russian – and therefore unpredictable and dangerous,” Medevedv wrote on Telegram, adding, “Durov should finally realize that homeland, like time, cannot be chosen…”
900 million users
Pavel Durov recounted in April in a rare interview that he came up with the idea of launching encrypted messaging after coming under pressure from Russian authorities at the time of VK, a social network he created in his home country before selling it and leaving Russia in 2014.
He said he then tried setting up in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco before opting for Dubai, whose business environment and “neutrality” he praised.
“I think we’re doing a good job with Telegram, with 900 million users who will probably exceed one billion monthly active users within a year,” he said.
In the Gulf emirate, Telegram has sheltered itself from state moderation rules, at a time when both the European Union and the United States are putting pressure on major platforms to remove illegal content.
With its discussion groups for up to 200,000 people, the messaging service is sometimes accused of increasing the viral potential of false information and the proliferation of hate, neo-Nazi, paedophile, conspiracy or terrorist content.
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