Founder of messaging app Telegram Pavel Durov arrested in France, sources say

Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder of messaging app Telegram, was arrested and taken into custody shortly after landing in a private jet at Le Bourget airport outside Paris, three sources told Reuters.

The arrest of the 39-year-old tech billionaire prompted a warning from Moscow to Paris on Sunday that his rights must be respected. It also drew criticism from X owner Elon Musk, who said freedom of expression in Europe was under pressure.

There was no official confirmation of the arrest from France, but two French police sources and a Russian source who asked not to be named said Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport in a private jet from Azerbaijan.

One of the two French police sources said that before the plane arrived, police noticed that Durov was on the passenger list and arrested him because there was an arrest warrant out for him in France.

“Telegram complies with EU law, including the Digital Services Act. Its moderation meets industry standards and is continuously improved,” Telegram said in a statement about the arrest.

“Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels regularly across Europe,” the magazine said. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for the abuse of that platform.”

Durov, who holds dual French and UAE citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes to take place due to a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a third French police source said.

A cybersecurity unit of the armed forces and the French national anti-fraud unit of the police are leading the investigation, the source said, adding that the investigating judge specialized in organized crime.

“We are waiting for a quick resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all,” the company said.

The French Interior Ministry, the police and the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment.

Russian lawmaker Maria Butina, who served 15 months in a US prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent, said Durov was “a political prisoner — a victim of a witch hunt by the West.” Durov’s arrest was the highlight of Russian news.

Dubai-based Telegram was founded by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition groups on his social media platform VK, which he has since sold.

The encrypted application, with nearly a billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is ranked as one of the most important social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.

‘Virtual battlefield’

Durov, who has a net worth of $15.5 billion according to Forbes, said in April that while some governments tried to pressure him, the app should remain a neutral platform and not a “player in geopolitics.”

He came up with the idea for an encrypted messaging app when he was under pressure in Russia. His younger brother, Nikolai, designed the encryption.

“I would rather be free than take orders from anyone,” Durov said in April about his departure from Russia and the search for a home base for his company, for which he has worked in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco, among other places.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Telegram has become the leading source of unfiltered — and sometimes graphic and misleading — content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.

The platform has become what some analysts call a “virtual battlefield” for war, used extensively by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials, as well as the Russian government.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had sent a letter to Paris demanding access to Durov, even though it said he was a French national.

According to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Durov made a mistake by fleeing Russia and thinking he would never have to cooperate with security services abroad.

Medvedev, who regularly uses Telegram to criticize and insult the West, said Durov wanted to be a “brilliant ‘man of the world’ who can live beautifully without the motherland.”

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“He misjudged it,” Medvedev said. “For all our common enemies now, he is Russian — and therefore unpredictable and dangerous.”

Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order giving state security services access to its users’ encrypted messages.

The action disrupted many third-party services, but had little effect on Telegram’s availability there. However, the ban led to mass protests in Moscow and criticism from NGOs.

Platform under the microscope

Telegram says it is “committed to protecting user privacy and human rights, such as freedom of expression and assembly.”

Durov has previously accused U.S. law enforcement agencies such as the FBI of trying to get a backdoor into the platform. The FBI has not commented on those allegations.

However, Telegram’s growing popularity has led to scrutiny in several European countries, including France, over concerns about security and data breaches.

Musk, the billionaire owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said after reports of Durov’s arrest: “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme.”

Outside the French embassy in Moscow, a lone protester held a sign reading: “Freedom for Pavel Durov.”