The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, is arrested at an airport in France
Telegram app founder Pavel Durov has reportedly been arrested at a French airport.
Pavel Durov, the billionaire co-founder and chief executive of messaging app Telegram, was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening.
Durov was traveling on his private jet while being targeted by an arrest warrant in France.
The 39-year-old man was said to be traveling from Azerbaijan and was arrested around 20:00 local time.
The Russian-born entrepreneur lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and has dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates.
Durov, who is estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of $15.5 billion, fled Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he sold.
It is learned that the Russian Embassy in France is taking “immediate steps” to clarify the situation.
Citing a representative from the Russian embassy in France, TASS reported that there had been no appeal from Durov’s team at the embassy, but that it was taking “immediate” proactive steps.
Durov and his brother Nikolai founded the messaging app in 2013, and it has around 900 million active users.
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