France issued arrest warrants for Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov, founders of the Telegram messaging service, already in March, Politico reported on Aug. 28, citing a document obtained from an undisclosed source involved in the case.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested at Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of Paris on Aug. 24 after landing in his private jet. Born in St. Petersburg, Durov obtained French citizenship in 2021 but is believed to live in Dubai.
He faces 12 charges from the French authorities, including crimes related to child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering, and withholding crucial information from investigators.
The document obtained by Politico showed that the French investigation into Telegram is more extensive and was launched several months earlier than previously thought. The French media reported earlier that the investigation was opened in July.
The case concerns the messaging platform's refusal to cooperate with a French police inquiry into child sexual abuse, according to Politico.
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The arrest warrants for the Durov brothers were issued on March 25 after Telegram "gave no answer" to a previous judicial request to identify a Telegram user, the media outlet wrote. The warrants were issued on charges including "complicity in possessing, distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors, in an organized group."
The document also notes "Telegram's almost non-existent cooperation" with both French and European authorities in other cases.
Nikolai Durov is a mathematician and programmer who was also a co-creator of the Russian VKontakte social network. He lives outside Russia, but his exact whereabouts are unknown, Politico reported.
Pavel Durov, who has a net worth estimated at $15.5 billion, left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the Russian social media platform VK, which he subsequently sold.
Durov has claimed he is a pariah and has been effectively exiled from Russia, but on Aug. 27, it was reported he had visited Russia over 60 times since leaving the country, according to Kremlingram, a Ukrainian group that campaigns against the use of Telegram in Ukraine.
Telegram remains one of the most popular social media platforms among Ukrainians. A September 2023 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology indicated that 44% of Ukrainians use Telegram to receive information and news.
Telegram is also widely used by Ukrainian officials and various government institutions against the advice of Ukraine's TV and radio-broadcasting body.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
(Updated: )
