26 Aug 2024
The French regulator OFMIN, which protects minors from violence, arrested the 39-year-old Russian-born Pavel Durov, was arrested on Saturday night outside Paris.
OFMIN arrested Telegram Founder Pavel Durov on charges of lack of moderators and failure to mitigate the misuse of his messaging app by criminals.
In 2006, Durov created VKontakte, Facebook’s Russian version. He quit VKontakte after a political spat with Kremlin-linked owners when he refused to block the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s account. He eventually left Russia in 2014 and obtained citizenship of the Caribbean Island archipelago of Saint Kitts and Nevis. He became a French citizen in August 2021 and is reported to hold UAE citizenship, too.
He founded Telegram in 2013 as a neutral and uncensored platform and headquartered it in Dubai.
Durov, the 121st richest globally, is accused of organised crime, drug trafficking, promotion of terrorism on his platform, cyberbullying, and fraud. Russia tried to ban Telegram in 2018 after Durov refused to allow the state security agents access to users’ messages.