NEW DELHI: Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested by French authorities on Saturday 24 August as reported by several news agencies at Le Bourget airport in the outskirts of Paris as he landed in his private aeroplane. According to French authorities, Durov’s arrest was made under a warrant related to offences connected to the Telegram platform.

Durov's arrest is alleged to be connected to accusations of failing to censor content on Telegram, with potential charges including support for terrorism and money laundering. This news comes amid speculation about his possible lengthy imprisonment and reflects Durov's ongoing conflicts with governmental authorities over privacy and free speech issues. Durov, 39, is the founder of Telegram, a cloud-based social media and instant messaging service with 950 million active users, which makes it bigger than X (540 million users).

While there was no official confirmation from the French government of the arrest, two French police sources and one Russian source who spoke to leading news agency Reuters on condition of anonymity said that Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport on a private jet from Azerbaijan. One of the two French police sources said that ahead of the jet's arrival, police had spotted he was on the passenger list and moved to arrest him because he was the subject of an arrest warrant in France.

Meanwhile, Telegram has denied all claims by the French officials, and calls the allegations “absurd”. "Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving," Telegram said in a statement on the arrest, it added, "Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe, It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for the abuse of that platform."

Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a third French police source said.