Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire co-founder of the messaging app Telegram, has been arrested in France as part of an investigation into criminal activity on the platform and a lack of cooperation with law enforcement, prosecutors said Monday.
Durov, a French national, was arrested Saturday night at Le Bourget airport near Paris after arriving from Azerbaijan on his private jet. His surprise arrest sparked a debate about freedom of expression around the world and caused an outcry in Moscow.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the investigation involved crimes related to illicit transactions, sexual abuse of minors, fraud and refusal to communicate information to authorities.
Earlier today, French President Emmanuel Macron gave the first confirmation that Durov had been arrested as part of a judicial investigation into Telegram.
“In a state governed by the rule of law, freedoms are respected within a legal framework, on social networks as in real life, to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights,” Emmanuel Macron wrote on X, adding that this arrest was “in no way a political decision.” “It is up to the justice system, in complete independence, to enforce the law,” he added.
A senior official at Ofmin, a French agency created last year to prevent violence against children, said Durov’s arrest was linked to Telegram’s failure to adequately combat crime on the app, including the dissemination of child sexual abuse material.
“At the heart of this case is the lack of moderation and cooperation of the platform (which has nearly a billion users), particularly in the fight against crimes against children,” wrote Jean-Michel Bernigaud, the secretary general of the OFMIN, on LinkedIn.
Beccuau said Durov was arrested as part of an investigation “on X” – that is, one or more unknown persons – opened on July 8 following a preliminary investigation by agents of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco).
Cybercrime and fraud investigators are investigating 12 alleged organized crime-related offences, including complicity in the possession and distribution of “child pornography” images of children, drug offences and fraud. It is unclear what alleged offences Durov is being questioned by police for.
On Sunday, the investigating judge extended Durov’s detention from 24 to 96 hours.
In a statement released Sunday evening, Telegram said Durov had “nothing to hide.” “Telegram complies with EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is in line with industry standards and is constantly improving. It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuses of this platform.”
Durov, a self-proclaimed libertarian often referred to as the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg,” left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with Kremlin demands to shut down opposition groups on the VK social network he founded at age 22.
He was forced to sell VK after a dispute with its Kremlin-linked owners and turned to Telegram, the app he founded with his brother Nikolai in 2013. Durov, who lives in Dubai, obtained his French passport in 2021 through a special procedure for high-profile foreigners exempting them from the usual legal requirements, including having lived in the country for at least five years.
Telegram has long been used by pro-democracy activists in countries including Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran. In Russia, the Kremlin was forced to lift a ban on the widely used app after years of unsuccessful attempts to restrict it.
But the app has also become a haven for extremists and conspiracy theorists. The app has also been widely used by far-right agitators planning anti-immigration rallies in England and Northern Ireland after the stabbing of three children at a dance class in Southport last month.
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Telegram has denied allegations that its platform facilitates illegal activities such as terrorism, fraud and child exploitation.
Although Durov has previously clashed with the Kremlin, his arrest angered Moscow and was portrayed by Russian officials as a case of Western hypocrisy over free speech.
“The arrest of Pavel Durov confirmed that there is no European or even global (pro-Western) freedom of speech,” said Sergei Mironov, a veteran Russian ultra-nationalist politician and ally of Vladimir Putin.
Maria Butina, a Russian lawmaker who spent 15 months in a 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.”
The Russian embassy in France said it had requested consular access to Durov, but its representatives reportedly did not respond, according to Russian state media.
Durov’s arrest has reignited debate over social media companies’ responsibility for the content shared on their platforms and whether they should prioritize security and cooperation with authorities over defending free speech. Elon Musk, who describes himself as an “absolute defender of free speech,” condemned Durov’s arrest, saying that freedom of expression in Europe was under threat.
