Pavel Durov, the Russian-French billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV said, citing unidentified sources. - REUTERS
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00:00Founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app Pavel Girov was reportedly arrested in
00:06France on Saturday.
00:08French media citing unnamed sources say he was arrested at Bourget Airport outside Paris.
00:14Girov was reportedly travelling aboard his private jet.
00:17According to TV news network TF1, he was targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of
00:22a preliminary police investigation.
00:25News outlets TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on the lack of moderators on Telegram.
00:32Police apparently said that allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging
00:36app.
00:37Reuters did not get a response for comment from Telegram, nor the French Interior Ministry
00:41and police.
00:43Russian-born Girov founded Telegram with his brother in 2013.
00:47With close to 1 billion users, Telegram is influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics
00:53of the former Soviet Union.
00:55Its increasing popularity, however, has prompted scrutiny from several countries in Europe,
01:00including France, on security and data breach concerns.
01:03And since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source
01:08of unfiltered and sometimes graphic and misleading content from both sides about the war.
01:13Girov, who Forbes estimates has a fortune worth $15.5 billion, said some governments
01:19have sought to pressure him, but the app should remain a neutral platform and not a player
01:25in geopolitics.
01:27Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order
01:32to grant state security services access to its users' encrypted messages.
01:36Telegram, which allows users to evade official scrutiny, has also become one of the few places
01:42where Russians can access independent news about the war, after the Kremlin increased
01:47curbs on independent media in recent years.