The Russian embassy in France said it is taking 'immediate steps' to clarify the circumstances of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov's arrest on Saturday, state-owned news agency TASS reported. This comes after local media reports said that the billionaire was detained at an airport outside Paris at around 8 PM local time. BFMTV reported that officers from the French anti-fraud office took the 39-year-old into custody. Officials have not issued a statement yet.
According to local media reports, Durov arrived in Paris from Azerbaijan. BFMTV said that an arrest warrant was issued for him due to the lack of moderation on Telegram, which was also being used for money laundering, drug trafficking and sharing pedophilic content.
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The Russian embassy in France told TASS that it was not contacted by Durov's team after the reports of the arrest, but it was taking "immediate" steps to clarify the situation. Telegram has not issued any statement about the founder's arrest.
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Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's representative to international organisations in Vienna, and several other Russian politicians accused France of dictatorship. "Some naive persons still don't understand that if they play more or less visible role in international information space it is not safe for them to visit countries which move towards much more totalitarian societies," Ulyanov wrote on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.
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Telegram became the main source of unfiltered information, sometimes misleading reports, since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Kremlin and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the app to pass on key messages.