Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, has reportedly been arrested by French police at Le Bourget airport.
Gatekeepers News reports that Durov’s arrest, according to French media and the BBC, is related to alleged offenses involving the popular messaging app.
There are also reports suggesting that he could face charges related to terrorism, money laundering, drug trafficking, and the presence of inappropriate content on the platform.
Mario Nawfal, an investor and content curator, indicated that Durov might face a prison sentence of up to 20 years due to Telegram’s lack of content moderation and alleged non-cooperation with French law enforcement.
Durov, a Russian national, founded Telegram in 2013 and left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government requests to silence opposition voices on his VKontakte social media platform.
The Russian embassy in France has stated that it is taking immediate steps to clarify the situation.
Telegram is popular in Russia, Ukraine, and former Soviet Union states, but it was banned in Russia in 2018 after Durov resisted a directive to provide user data.
The app is one of the major social media platforms, ranking alongside Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat.
