France arrests Telegram CEO Pavel Durov at Paris airport
Pavel Durov, a dual citizen of France and Russia, was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday evening after landing in France from Azerbaijan
AP
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Pavel Durov, a dual citizen of France and Russia, was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday evening after landing in France from Azerbaijan. PHOTO: X
Nice (France), 25 Aug
The founder and CEO
of the messaging service Telegram was detained at a Paris airport on an arrest
warrant alleging his platform has been used for money laundering, drug
trafficking and other offenses, French media reported on Sunday.
Pavel Durov, a
dual citizen of France and Russia, was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget
Airport on Saturday evening after landing in France from Azerbaijan, according
to broadcasters LCI and TF1. Investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office,
attached to the French customs department, notified Durov, 39, that he was
being placed in police custody, the broadcasters said.
Durov's
representatives couldn't be immediately reached for comment. French prosecutors
declined to comment on Durov's arrest when contacted by The Associated Press on
Sunday, in line with regulations during an ongoing investigation.
French media
reported that the warrant for Durov was issued by France at the request of the
special unit at the country's interior ministry in charge of investigating
crimes against minors. Those include online sexual exploitation, such as
possession and distribution of child sexual abuse content and grooming for
sexual purposes.
Telegram was
founded by Durov and his brother in the wake of the Russian government's
crackdown after mass pro-democracy protests that rocked Moscow at the end of
2011 and 2012.
The demonstrations
prompted Russian authorities to clamp down on the digital space, adopting
regulations that forced internet providers to block websites and cellphone
operators to store call records and messages that could be shared with security
services.
In the
increasingly repressive environment, Telegram and its pro-privacy rhetoric
offered a convenient way for Russians to communicate and share news. In 2018,
Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor moved to block Telegram over its refusal to
hand over encryption keys, but ultimately failed to fully restrict access to
the app.
Telegram continued
to be widely used — including by government institutions — and the ban was
dropped two years later. In March 2024, Roskomnadzor said that Telegram was
working with the Russian government to a certain extent and had removed more
than 256,000 posts with prohibited content at Roskomnadzor's request.
Telegram also
continues to be a popular source of news in Ukraine, where both media outlets
and officials use it to share information on the war, and deliver missile and
air raid alerts.
Telegram did not
immediately respond to a message for comment on Sunday.
A French judicial
official suggested that Durov could appear before a judge later Sunday to
determine whether he will remain in custody. The official wasn't authorised to
be named publicly during an ongoing investigation. “If the person concerned is
to be brought before a judge today, it is only in the context of the possible
extension of his police custody measure — a decision that must be taken and
notified by an investigating judge,” the official said.
Western governments
have often criticised Telegram for lack of content moderating on the messaging
service, which experts say opens up the messaging platform for potential use in
money laundering, drug trafficking and allowing the sharing of content linked
to sexual exploitation of minors.
Compared to other
messaging platforms, Telegram is “less secure (and) more lax in terms of policy
and detection of illegal content”, said David Thiel, a Stanford University
researcher, who has investigated the use of online platforms for child
exploitation, at its Internet Observatory.
In addition,
Telegram “appears basically unresponsive to law enforcement”, Thiel said,
adding that messaging service WhatsApp “submitted over 1.3 million CyberTipline
reports in 2023 (and) Telegram submits none”.
In 2022, Germany
issued fines of 5.125 million euros (USD 5 million) against the operators of
Telegram for failing to comply with German law. The Federal Office of Justice
said that Telegram FZ-LLC hasn't established a lawful way for reporting illegal
content or named an entity in Germany to receive official communication.
Both are required
under German laws that regulate large online platforms.
Last year, Brazil
temporarily suspended Telegram over its failure to surrender data on neo-Nazi
activity related to a police inquiry into school shootings in November.
Russian government
officials expressed outrage at Durov's arrest, with some highlighting what they
said was the West's double standard on freedom of speech. “In 2018, a group of
26 NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House,
Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and others,
condemned the Russian court's decision to block Telegram,” Russian Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“Do you think this
time they'll appeal to Paris and demand Durov's release?” Zakharova said in a
post on her personal Telegram account.
Officials at the
Russian Embassy in Paris had requested access to Durov, Zakharova told Russian
state news outlet RIA Novosti, but she added that French authorities view
Durov's French citizenship as his primary one.
In a statement to
the AP earlier this month, Telegram said that it actively combats misuse of its
platform.
“Moderators use a
combination of proactive monitoring and user reports in order to remove content
that breaches Telegram's terms of service. Each day, millions of pieces of
harmful content are removed,” the company said.
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