Telegram CEO Pavel Durov to Appear in French Court Following Arrest

Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, is set to appear in a French court following his arrest at an airport near Paris. The arrest took place at Le Bourget Airport on Saturday evening, after Durov arrived from Baku, Azerbaijan, according to reports from AFP.

Durov’s detention stems from an arrest warrant issued by France’s Office for the Prevention of Violence Against Minors (OFMIN). The warrant is linked to an ongoing investigation into alleged offenses including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime, and the promotion of terrorism.

A source close to the investigation stated, “Telegram’s impunity has gone on long enough,” expressing surprise that Durov chose to come to Paris despite being aware of the warrant for his arrest.

Telegram, which allows groups of up to 200,000 members, has faced criticism for facilitating the rapid spread of misinformation and enabling the dissemination of harmful content, including neo-Nazi, pedophilic, conspiratorial, and terrorist material.

This comes in contrast to rival messaging platform WhatsApp, which introduced global limits on message forwarding in 2019 to curb the spread of misinformation after incidents of lynching in India were linked to false information circulated on the platform.