Why was Pavel Durov arrested? Reason behind Telegram CEO facing 20 years in jail explored

Pavel Durov, the cloud-based messaging app Telegram’s co-founder and CEO, was reportedly arrested on Saturday, August 24, from Le Bourget Airport in France. Durov is a Russian-born 39-year-old billionaire, with citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates.

According to French media outlet TF1, Durov was accused of being at fault for not inspecting the content on Telegram, which had allegedly led to various criminal activities, including adult content with the potential to cause minors’ exploitation, drug peddling, and monetary fraud. The outlet also cited Durov's lack of "cooperation with law enforcement" as one reason.

French authorities reportedly apprehended Pavel Durov when he arrived at the airport from Azerbaijan in the evening. As per TF1's report, a woman and Durov's bodyguard were with him at the time of the arrest.

An arrest warrant against Durov was issued after a police investigation from the French National Criminal Investigation Department was purportedly launched to look into the criminal activities that allegedly took place on the app. Air Transport Gendarmerie (GTA), Office national antifraude (ONAF), the French PAF or Police aux frontières, and the French Command of the Gendarmerie in cyberspace (COMCyberGEND) executed the arrest.

An insider source said the billionaire deliberately avoided staying in countries where his app was under surveillance, adding the legal apprehension was possible only because he was on French soil on Saturday.

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Pavel Durov reportedly faces 20 years in jail

The Telegram co-founder was reportedly to appear before an examining magistrate right after his arrest and was due to be presented in court for a potential indictment on Sunday, August 25. After that, Pavel Durov is likely to remain in custody.

Referring to Telegram, one investigator purportedly said,

"For years now, it's been THE number 1 platform for organized crime."

Although the French investigators refused to disclose further details about the case, some posts circulating online alleged Durov could face up to 20 years of jail time if he gets convicted. Some X users also claimed that the Telegram CEO was arrested because authorities wanted the app to censor the truths about sociopolitical events.

An X user wrote:

"France is actually going to throw Telegram founder Pavel Durov in jail for up to 20 YEARS for refusing to censor the truth."

Elon Musk demanded for Pavel Durov to be free as he shared a Tucker Carlson interview clip with the hashtag #FreePavel.

In the clip, Durov appreciated Elon buying Twitter, adding it brought several developments to the platform. He told Tucker,

"What X is trying to do is innovation, trying different things, trying to give power to the creators, trying to get the ecosystem...economy going...I think we need more companies like that."

Durov left Russia in 2014 after he refused to back down from practicing freedom of speech on his then-social network platform called VKontakte with the Kremlin. The Durov brothers Pavel and Nikolai brought Telegram into existence the previous year. He also turned down the demands to share Telegram's user data with the Russian secret service. The pressure from all these eventually compelled Pavel Durov to shut down VKontakte and leave the country.