Billionaire Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of the messaging application Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget Airport in Paris after getting off his private jet Saturday (August 24), French media outlet TF1 Info reported (h/t the New York Post).
Durov, 39, a self-imposed Russian exile, was detained at around 8:00 p.m. local time after flying to Paris from Azerbaijan. French authorities issued a search warrant as part of a preliminary investigation into the billionaire and his Telegram application, which has more than 900 million active users globally, but the warrant was only valid once Durov landed on French soil.
Law enforcement claimed that the application's lack of moderation and tools offered, such as cryptocurrencies, make it complicit to incidents involving drug trafficking, pedophilia and fraud and acted quickly after Durov arrived in the country.
“He made a blunder this evening. We don’t know why… Was this flight just a stopover? In any case, he’s in custody,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told TF1.
Durov, best known for founding Telegram and VK (VKontakte), lives in Dubai and has dual citizenship in the United Arab Emirates and France, according to Fortune. The Russian billionaire fled his home country in 2014 after refusing to hand over encrypted user data to officials or silence communities opposing the Kremlin, which he later sold, one year after launching the popular application.