- Telegram founder arrested by French authorities at the airport on his way back from Azerbaijan
- The founder is wanted for failure to cooperate with law enforcement officials and for alleged complicity in illegal activities taking place through the messaging application
Founder and CEO of Telegram – Pavel Durov was arrested by authorities at an airport in France. A translated report from TFI Info declared that the founder was arrested at Le Bourget Airport, Paris, on his way back from Azerbaijan. He was accompanied by a woman and his bodyguards.
Notably, the CEO had an arrest warrant issued against him by the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police – OFMIN. And the crux of the order was the lack of cooperation with law enforcement. In addition, the CEO is also accused of complicity in sexual offenses, fraud and drug trafficking.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time Durov has been found at an intersection with law enforcement. The CEO of Telegram had made headlines for not cooperating with Russian authorities on his previous founder application – VK, a Russian social media and networking service. The founder had refused to censor the content and provide the government with information about its users, which ultimately led to him leaving the company.
While Telegram has come under the radar for being used for illegal activities, the social messaging app has also played a key role in ensuring freedom of speech and expression. The messaging application took center stage during Hong Kong’s 2021 anti-extradition bill protest. The app allowed demonstrators to coordinate their protests without government oversight.
Telegram’s crypto is affected by this
TONCOIN (TON) has reacted strongly to the arrest of the social media founder. According to CoinMarketCap, the coin has lost more than 10% of its value in just one hour and was trading at $5.98 at the time of writing. The last day chart recorded a loss on similar lines, while the 7-day chart recorded a loss of over 7%. The coin’s market capitalization was over $15 billion, while its trading volume was approximately $695 million.
Source: CoinMarketCap
As for the arrest, Chart Simpson – an X user said,
“If Pavel Durov was arrested on the assumption that bad actors are using Telegram to harm people, why aren’t the CEOs of tobacco and weapons companies also arrested? It becomes very frightening how governments want to brazenly interfere with freedom of expression.”
Meanwhile, Dacadey – a Reddit user expressed,
“That is a very stupid argument. That’s like accusing kitchen stores of being complicit in murders because they sell kitchen knives. And especially the “lack of cooperation with law enforcement” – yes, we understand that you would like to have backdoors in all messengers and spy on your citizens 24/7.
The story is still developing.