The head of Telegram messages Pavel Durov said, Moscow is worried | AIB

Pavel Durov regained his freedom after four days of detention in France, but the Telegram boss, who holds Russian, French and Emirati passports, has been charged with numerous crimes related to his messaging application and banned from leaving the country .Pull à hood, cap and sunglasses, usually dressed in black, Pavel Durov he rushed into the vehicle waiting for him as he left a Paris court on Wednesday night, after thanking his lawyer with a hug.

If the 39-year-old billionaire has been released, he is subject to heavy judicial control, providing for a bail of five million euros, a report to the police station twice a week and a ban on leaving French territory.

An enigmatic personality, Mr Durov faces a number of charges for refusing any moderation on the Telegram messaging service, which has more than 900 million active subscribers.

According to the prosecutor’s office in Paris, he is accused in particular of “refusal to communicate the necessary information for interceptions authorized by law” and complicity in crimes and crimes organized through the platform: trading drugs, organized gang criminality, fraud and money laundering.

“It is completely absurd to think that the manager of a social network could be involved in criminal acts that do not concern him, either directly or indirectly,” responded his lawyer, Me David-Olivier Kaminski.

In Moscow, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that these prosecutions against a “Russian citizen” should not “transform into political persecution”.

Notable supporters of the businessman include American Russian whistleblower Edward Snowden and technology mogul Elon Musk.

– At least four passports –

Pavel Durov was arrested on Saturday night at Le Bourget airport, near Paris, and his police custody ended on Wednesday.

According to a source close to the matter, he and his brother Nikolaï, co-founders of Telegram, had been the subject of search warrants issued by the French justice system since March as part of a preliminary investigation.

A second investigation was also opened against the billionaire for “serious violence” committed in Paris against one of his sons born in 2017, another source close to the matter told AFP.

The complex relations of Pavel Durov – whose fortune Forbes estimates to be $15.5 billion in 2024 – with the Russian authorities as well as those of his adopted countries raise many questions about the reasons and timing of his arrest.

He left Russia in 2014, then in trouble with the Kremlin. He had refused to hand over to the Russian security services (FSB) the personal data of users, especially some Ukrainian pro-European activists, on another social network launched in 2006, VKontakte (VK). VK became the most used network in its country of origin and has since been taken over by those close to those in power.

Founded in 2013, Telegram messages, which has always claimed to respect the European laws is committed to never revealing information about its users.

Pavel Durov, based in Dubai, obtained the nationality of the then Caribbean island of Saint-Kitts-and-Nevis from the United Arab Emirates, before adding, in August 2021, French citizenship thanks to a rare procedure that Paris continues to be very subtle about it.

In Belgrade, President Emmanuel Macron declared on Thursday that he “completely assumes” this naturalization, as part of a “completely assumed strategy”, involving personalities who “make the effort to learn the language French” and is “radiation in the world”.

– Macron “not aware” –

His departure from Russia would not have been a brutal exile: according to the Russian site Vazhnye Istorii, citing information disclosed by border authorities, he would have visited it more than 50 times between 2015 and 2021.

According to a source close to the case, Pavel Durov also spoke during his police custody about his relations with President Macron, who on Monday defended himself against any interference, referring to a pure “judicial investigation”.

On Thursday, the head of state assured that he was “completely unaware” that the head of Telegram was coming to France.

The daily Le Monde reported several meetings between the two men before the business manager acquired French nationality.

The Wall Street Journal also claimed that the president, during a dinner in 2018, suggested establishing the headquarters of the application in Paris. In vain.

In a rare interview with the ultra-conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson, the aspiring liberal recently praised the Emirates as a “great place” to house Telegram, because of their “neutrality”.

An Emirati official assured AFP that he was “in contact with the French authorities regarding this matter and with the representatives of Pavel Durov”.

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© Agence France-Presse