Who is Telegram CEO Pavel Durov? What to know about his arrest in France

Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov was detained at the Paris-Le Bourget airport on Saturday, after arriving by a private plane from Baku, Azerbaijan.

He is accused of having failed to moderate criminal activity on the platform.

Here is what we know about Durov, Telegram and the case:

Who is Durov and why was he detained?

Russian-born Durov, 39, co-founded what became one of Russia’s most popular social media networks, VKontakte, in his native St Petersburg, in 2007. He has been compared with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

In 2013, he grabbed global headlines by publicly offering a job to whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this year, Durov claimed that he was under pressure to give Russian authorities access to data from accounts of Ukrainian pro-democracy activists in 2014 — and that he refused to do so.

As the Russian government tightened its grip on the internet and President Vladimir Putin’s allies started to take control of VKontakte, Durov sold his stake in the platform in 2014 and fled the country.

He then shifted his focus to Telegram, an app he co-founded with his brother Nikolai when he was 28.

Durov has been living in Dubai and is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, according to Telegram. It is unclear whether he has given up his Russian citizenship.

Business magazine Forbes estimates his wealth at $15.5bn, as of Sunday morning.

Durov has maintained a hands-off stance on moderation, positioning the app as private and censorship. Nonetheless, some experts have cautioned that this approach has led to Telegram becoming a hotspot for illicit activity and extremism.

According to a report by the AFP news agency, he was detained “over offences alleged to have been conducted on Telegram, ranging from fraud, to drug trafficking, cyberbullying and organised crime, including promoting terrorism and fraud.”

While the European Union and the United States have fined other social media platforms for violations their rules and regulations, and their lawmakers have hauled up leaders of digital firms for public hearings, they are not known to have arrested major tech leaders.

In 2016, a senior Facebook executive was arrested in Brazil after the company didn’t give information from WhatsApp related to a drug trafficking investigation. The parent company of Facebook, which was renamed Meta in 2021, owns WhatsApp.

What is Telegram?

Launched in August 2013, Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app. The platform allows users to send messages, photos and large files as well as create groups for “up to 200,000 people or channels for broadcasting to unlimited audiences”.

These features, coupled with the app’s minimal moderation, made it an ideal venue for individuals and groups banned from other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Since its creation, the platform has surged in popularity; it now has nearly one billion active users and has emerged as an important communication tool in conflict zones, including the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Telegram development team is currently based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

According to a report by Statista, Telegram is the third most downloaded messenger app globally following WhatsApp and Snapchat.

In 2023, India, Russia, and the US were the app’s top markets based on download figures. In 2021, it was the most downloaded app worldwide with one billion downloads.

Telegram says that Durov “supports Telegram financially and ideologically”. The platform specifically stays away from “politically motivated censorship”, however, it specifies that it does block “terrorist bots and channels”.

The platform makes money through revenue from advertising and a premium subscription programme launched two years ago.

“We are hoping to become profitable next year, if not this year,” Durov told the Financial Times in March.

“The main reason why we started to monetise is because we wanted to remain independent,” he said. “Generally speaking, we see value in [an IPO] as a means to democratise access to Telegram’s value.”

How has Russia responded to Durov’s arrest?

The relationship between Russia and Durov has been fraught with tension. After Durov left the country, Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 when the app refused to provide state security services with access to users’ encrypted messages. The ban was lifted in 2020, though the app — like other online platforms in Russia — faces censorship and government scrutiny.

However, after the entrepreneur’s arrest, Russia was quick to respond, and its embassy in France demanded consular access to Durov and demanded that he have access to his rights.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna, accused France of acting as a “totalitarian” society — while also calling Durov “naive” for believing in Western claims to defend the freedom of speech.

“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.

According to Ben Aris, Russia watcher and editor of the agency bne IntelliNews, Durov was flying from Azerbaijan where Putin has been for the last few days.

“The talk was that he was there wanting to lobby Putin in order to prevent having Telegram blocked or turned off inside Russia,” Aris told Al Jazeera.

Separately, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday wrote on his Telegram channel: “He thought his biggest problems were in Russia and left … he wanted to be a brilliant ‘citizen of the world’, living well without a homeland.”

“He miscalculated. To our common enemies, he is still Russian – unpredictable and dangerous, of different blood.”

What about other reactions to Durov’s arrest?

Elon Musk, the owner of X, posted #FreePavel on the platform.

“It’s 2030 in Europe and you are being executed for liking a meme,” he added.

“Durov’s arrest, aside from being incredibly unjust based on the current charges (it’s clear that Durov isn’t involved in terrorism or arms trafficking), is also a significant blow to freedom of speech,” Georgy Alburov, a Russian political activist with the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on X.

“Freedom for Pavel Durov,” he added.

Edward Snowden called the arrest “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association”.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson also hit out at the French government.

Former US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who dropped out of the race last week to endorse Donald Trump for the November election, also backed Durov in a post on X.