Who is Juli Vavilova? All you need to know about the mystery woman allegedly linked to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest

On August 24, Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested in Paris following the allegations that his app is being used for illegal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and distribution of child abuse media, among others.

Although Pavel Durov has not yet been charged, he is detained for questioning. In response to his arrest, Telegram issued a press statement claiming it abides by “EU laws” and its content moderation is “within industry standards and constantly improving.”

The company further remarked that its CEO “has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe.” Notably, Durov is a French citizen and was taken into custody after he arrived at the Paris’ Le Bourget Airport over the weekend from Azerbaijan in his private jet.

In the wake of Pavel Durov’s arrest, a woman named Juli Vavilova was also detained by the French police. She reportedly accompanied the Telegram CEO on his recent trips.

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Exploring the identity of Juli Vavilova, the woman allegedly linked to Pavel Durov’s arrest

Juli Vavilova, the woman taken into custody alongside Pavel Durov, is a 24-year-old social media influencer, gamer, and crypto coach with nearly 30,000 Instagram followers. Per her bio on the platform, her interests lie in gaming, cryptocurrency, languages, traveling, and mindset. She is reportedly fluent in English, Arabic, Spanish, and Russian.

The Russian-born and Dubai-based personality seemingly traveled with the billionaire businessman weeks before his arrest. They were reportedly spotted together in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan before arriving in France. According to online speculations, Vavilova may have led the French authorities to her and Durov by sharing their holiday pictures and videos on social media.

Some even claimed she was under surveillance for her own seemingly illicit activities, such as espionage. Meanwhile, others speculated that she was a “honeytrap” for Pavel Durov in the wake of his arrest. However, all the claims remain unfounded due to the lack of proper evidence at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, Baptiste Robert, the CEO of Predicta Lab (a platform aimed to combat online misinformation), reshared a video on X originally posted by the Open-Source Intelligence account Amir Intel. In the video, Juli Vavilova credits her friends for helping her “circumvent” Russian sanctions with cryptocurrency.

"When Russia went under sanctions, my smart friends, I'm really glad that I have my smart friends around me who educate me about crypto who gives me opportunities, other stuff… He just told me, the same day, to send all the crypto to the trust wallet. And he was so right because in two days, they said that Russians cannot use Binance… I couldn’t move money/ coins from there," Vavilova said in her Twitch livestream.

Baptiste Robert also included multiple videos and images of Pavel Durov and Juli Vavilova, which they shared on their social media accounts. While they did not share clips of each other, the locations were the same, including an outdoor shooting range to the inside of a racing car. He also hinted that the Telegram CEO and this woman may be romantically involved.

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As per the latest reports, Pavel Durov reportedly told the French officials that he had “nothing to hide” during the first round of questioning. Currently, he is being accused of failing to prevent illicit and potentially criminal activities on Telegram. Notably, besides Juli Vavilov, the VK co-founder was also accompanied by a personal assistant and a bodyguard at the time of his arrest.