Telegram founder arrest part of cybercrime inquiry, say prosecutors

Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire co-founder of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested in France in connection with an investigation into criminal activity on the platform and a lack of cooperation with law enforcement, prosecutors announced on Monday.

Durov, who has French citizenship, was detained at Le Bourget airport , just outside Paris, on Saturday evening after arriving from Azerbaijan on his private jet. His surprise arrest has sparked debate over free speech worldwide and led to an outcry in Moscow.

The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said the investigation concerned crimes related to illicit transactions, child sexual abuse, fraud and the refusal to communicate information to authorities.

Earlier in the day the French president, Emmanuel Macron, gave the first confirmation that Durov had been arrested as part of a judicial inquiry in relation to Telegram.

“In a state governed by the rule of law, freedoms are upheld within a legal framework, both on social media and in real life, to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights,” Macron wrote on X, adding that the arrest was “in no way a political decision”. “It is up to the judiciary, in full independence, to enforce the law,” he said.

A senior official at Ofmin, a French agency set up last year to prevent violence against children, said Durov’s arrest was linked to Telegram’s failure to properly fight crime on the app , including the spread of child sexual abuse material. Ofmin issued the arrest warrant for Durov.

“At the heart of this case is the lack of moderation and cooperation of the platform (which has almost 1 billion users), in particular in the fight against crimes against children,” Jean-Michel Bernigaud, the secretary general of Ofmin, wrote on LinkedIn.

Beccuau said Durov was arrested as part of an investigation “into X” – meaning a person or persons unknown – that was opened on 8 July following a preliminary investigation by officers of the National Jurisdiction for Combating Organised Crime (Junalco).

Specialist cybercrime and fraud detectives are looking into 12 alleged offences linked to organised crime, including complicity in the possession and distribution of images of children of “a pedo-pornographic nature”, drug offences and fraud. It is not clear which, if any, of the alleged offences police are questioning Durov over.

On Sunday the investigating magistrate extended Durov’s detention from 24 to up to 96 hours. By that deadline, the magistrate must either charge him with a crime and continue his detention or set him free.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Telegram said Durov had “nothing to hide”. It said: “Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

Durov, a self-styled libertarian often cast as “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg”, left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with Kremlin demands to shut down opposition groups on the VK social network that he founded when he was 22.

He was forced to sell VK after a dispute with its Kremlin-linked owners and turned his focus 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 unsuccessfully trying to curtail it for years.

But it has also become a haven for extremists and conspiracy theorists. The app was also widely used by far-right agitators plotting anti-immigration rallies in England and Northern Ireland after the stabbing of three children at a dance class in Southport last month.

Telegram has denied allegations that its platform facilitates illegal activities such as terrorism, fraud and child exploitation.

Related: Who is Pavel Durov? Billionaire founder of Telegram remains a mysterious figure

Although Durov had previously clashed with the Kremlin, his arrest has provoked anger in Moscow and has been portrayed by Russian officials as a case of western hypocrisy regarding free speech.

“The arrest of Pavel Durov confirmed that there has been 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 US 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 his representatives reportedly did not respond, according to Russian state media.

Durov’s arrest has renewed debates about the responsibility of social media tech companies for the content shared on their platforms and whether they should prioritise safety and cooperate with authorities over upholding free speech. Elon Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist”, condemned Durov’s arrest, claiming free speech in Europe was under attack.