Telegram co-founder arrested in France for alleged complicity in serious crimes

French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, co-founder of Telegram, the encrypted instant messaging platform of Russian origin, on the evening of Saturday, August 24, 2024. as he disembarked from his private plane on the runway at Paris-Le Bourget airport, arriving from Azerbaijan, according to local media reports.

The 39-year-old Franco-Russian billionaire, who was arrested by the Air Transport Gendarmerie, He had a French arrest warrant issued by the juvenile office (OFMIN) of the National Directorate of Criminal Investigation based on a preliminary investigation.

French justice maintains that the lack of moderation on Telegram and Pavel Durov’s lack of cooperation with the authorities, Together with the tools the platform offers, such as disposable numbers and encryption, they make him complicit in crimes such as drug trafficking, pedophilia and fraud.

The Telegram co-founder is expected to appear before an investigating judge in the coming hours when he could face charges that include terrorism, drug trafficking, complicity, fraud, money laundering, and distribution of pedophile content, among other charges, according to French media reports.

Telegram is an instant messaging application for electronic devices launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai as an alternative to the WhatsApp application.

Based in Dubai and translated into more than 20 languages, if there is one thing that characterizes Telegram, it is its permanent synchronization to the cloud, something that WhatsApp does not have, so that its users can access messages from different devices at the same time, including tablets and computers, and share an unlimited number of photos, videos and files. (doc, zip, mp3, etc.) up to 2 GB each.

But the platform also offers the creation of bots (automatic messages), the implementation of secret chats that protect users’ privacy with exclusive encryption between the sender and the receiver and the limitation of up to 200,000 people per group.

For all this – its encryption, the large size of the groups and the possibility of sharing files of any type or size – it is not surprising that the platform has become something unique but at the same time into an attractive instrument for criminals and extremists.

In fact, Telegram has been removed from app stores or blocked by courts on several occasions. for allowing the exchange of illegal content, and in the case of authoritarian regimes, by encouraging protests by opponents.