Pavel Durov, co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France on Saturday evening, French media reported.
Sources said TF1 TV Network that he was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris after traveling by private jet from Azerbaijan.
The report added that the arrest warrant was issued as part of a police investigation into a lack of moderators on Telegram, which has facilitated criminal activity.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Luck.
Durov was born in Russia and currently lives in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered, holding dual citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates.
He and his brother Nikolai founded Telegram in 2013 but left Russia in 2014 after he refused to hand over encrypted user data to Russian secret services and refused to shut down opposition communities on a private social network he later sold.
He moved to Dubai in 2017 and became a French citizen in 2021, according to ForbesDurov’s net worth is estimated at $15.5 billion.
Telegram, which has about 900 million active users, is growing in popularity as a more secure means of communicating through encrypted messages.
Although Telegram has been used in conflict zones as well as by militant groups, Durov has said that Telegram is a neutral platform and not “a factor in geopolitics”.
