PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of Telegram who was arrested in Paris, has nothing to hide and it is absurd to hold an owner responsible for abuse of the messaging and social media platform, Telegram said in a statement.
Durov, a 39-year-old billionaire, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday from Azerbaijan.
The arrest of the Telegram CEO prompted 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.
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.”
“Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” Telegram said. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”
“We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”
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 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.
Telegram 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 1 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, who was born in Soviet Leningrad and graduated from St Petersburg State University, lists his political views as “libertarian” and says he was inspired by Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs.
Estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of $15.5 billion, Durov said in April some governments had sought to pressure him, but the app should remain a neutral platform and not a “player in geopolitics”.
Durov, whose arrest led news bulletins in Russia,came up with the idea for an encrypted messaging app while facing pressure from Russian authorities. His younger brother, Nikolai, designed the encryption.
“I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone,” Durov said in April about his exit from Russia and search for a home for his company, which included stints in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.
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.”
(Reporting by Ingrid Melander, Gilles Guillaume, Corentin Chappron and Alain Acco in Paris, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Camille Raynaud in Toronto and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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