Pavel Durov arrested in France for refusing to cooperate with special services

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram messenger and VKontakte social network, was detained in Paris, France, as he was leaving his private jet. Durov is to be charged under several articles at a time.

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Durov arrived in France from Azerbaijan together with a bodyguard and an unnamed woman on a private jet on Saturday, August 24, at about 21:00 Moscow time. Gendarmes stopped Durov as he was leaving the plane and presented a search warrant to him issued by the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police.

Durov was placed in custody. It is believed that he is going to be charged with terrorism, drug trafficking, fraud, money laundering and distribution of paedophile content. According to investigators, the people who commit such crimes used Telegram for those purposes. The French authorities claimed that Telegram has been used as number one platform for organised crime for years.

"Telegram is a hive of criminal content. The platform is currently in the spotlight for illegal sports broadcasts, but many accounts on this service are used by organised crime. In addition to terrorism, most dangerous criminals use Telegram to exchange child pornography content," one of the investigators working on the Durov case said.

Pavel Durov may face 20 years in prison in France if found guilty on all charges.

Durov knew about his status in France, but landed in Paris anyway

Local media report that Durov was declared persona non grata in France. He knew about it and tried not to visit European countries and countries where Telegram was under surveillance. He most often traveled to the countries of the former USSR, South America and flew to the United Arab Emirates, where Telegram's central office is located.

It is believed that Durov's private jet was forced to land at Le Bourget airport in Paris for refueling.

"He made a mistake. We don't know why… Perhaps it was just a stopover. In any case, he is currently in custody," a source told TF1.

Durov flew to Paris from Azerbaijan with a bodyguard and an unidentified woman. According to media reports, he planned to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Baku on August 18 and 19. Putin rejected the offer.

Pavel Durov was allegedly arrested due to his refusal to cooperate with French special services. The entrepreneur has repeatedly spoken harshly about special services of different countries and claimed that he refuses to work with them. He also spoke out against surveillance of ordinary people.

Durov has repeatedly criticised Telegram's rival, the WhatsApp messenger.

"Stay away from WhatsApp — this messenger has been a surveillance tool for 13 years," Durov wrote, adding that he had deleted WhatsApp several years ago.

Durov assured that Telegram was one of the few messengers that did not abuse the trust of users. According to him, US-based messenger developers are required to secretly introduce backdoors into their applications so that American intelligence agencies could access personal data.

Durov entered into a protracted conflict with Russian intelligence services, due to which Telegram was blocked in Russia from 2018 to 2020. A year before the blocking, the FSB said that a terrorist attack was being prepared through Telegram in St. Petersburg. The FSB asked the messenger to provide encryption keys that would allow access to users' correspondence. The Telegram management refused and said that it was impossible to do so as encryption keys were stored on user devices, rather than on company's servers.

French newspaper Le Parisien:

• The warrant issued by the French authorities could only be activated if he arrived in France.
• Durov has not visited France or Europe since the warrant was issued. It is unknown why he flew to Paris.
• The French justice system believes that Telegram's refusal to cooperate with the police and the lack of moderation make the messenger an accomplice to various crimes.