According to Reuters, Pavel Durov, a Russian billionaire, founder and CEO of the Telegram application, has just been arrested at Bourget Airport (France).
Citing an unnamed source, TF1 TV and BFM TV channels said that Durov has just been arrested in France, related to a police investigation.

Authorities believe that the lack of moderators has created conditions for criminal activities to take place on Telegram.

Telegram is currently one of the most popular messaging applications today with nearly 1 billion users, second only to major social networking platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.

CEO of the Telegram application Pavel Durov has just been arrested in France. Photo: Flickr
Durov was born in Russia and founded Telegram with his brother in 2013. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the social media platform Vkontakte (which he later sold).

The Russian Foreign Ministry said its embassy in Paris was investigating the situation surrounding Durov and called on Western NGOs to demand his release.

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

Durov is estimated to be worth $15.5 billion, according to Forbes. Telegram’s rise and popularity have prompted action by several European countries, including France, over concerns about security and data breaches.

Currently, neither Telegram, the Interior Ministry nor the French police have commented on the matter.