Telegram founder Pavel Durov is allowed temporarily to leave France, where he has been accused of several violations to enable allegedly organized crime, sources reported to the AFP.
Durov, now 40, was sensationally detained at the Burgate Airport Le Borgate Airport outside Paris in August 2024 and accused of violating the popular messaging app.
This was the first time the founder of a social media company was arrested on the material on his platform. With more than 900 million active users, Telegram is one of the top message apps in the world.
After the days of interrogation after his arrest, he was accused of failing to curb extremist and terrorist materials and issued on bail of five million-euros ($ 5.6 million).
Sources said they were banned from leaving the country, but flew to Dubai on Saturday.
A knowledgeable source told AFP, “He left France this morning, saying that Durov had left with the permission of the authorities.
Another source said that one of the world’s most influential technical owners, Durov had departed from the Burgate Airport, which is a company based in the United Arab Emirates to Dubai outside Paris, where his company is based.
According to a third source, an investigation judge authorized the entrepreneur to leave France for “several weeks”.
Russian -born Durov has kept Russian, French and United Arab Emirates passports. An esoteric person who rarely speaks publicly is a multiplicity fond of ascetic practices.
A Telegram spokesperson refused to comment when AFP arrived.
Durov’s lawyers were not immediately available for comment.
The investigation judge had accepted Durov’s request to revise his maintenance terms several days ago.
‘Severity of allegations’
Durov, a self-declared Liberterian, has made the champion of privacy on the Internet. Moscow tried to block Telegram in 2018, but left those efforts two years later.
He initially criticized his arrest, but since then announced the steps visible to bend the demands of Paris.
Extracts from Durov’s interrogation in December through an interpreter viewed by the AFP showed that they initially convicted the French authorities for failing to warn Telegram for alleged criminal activity.
But Durov still admitted that “it was when I was kept in custody that I realized the seriousness of all the allegations”.
Investigators have faced Durov with more than a dozen specific cases, from hair abuse to drug trading, scams, arms sales and hitman recruitment.
President Emmanuel Macron defended Durov’s decision to grant French nationality, saying that it was a “strategy” about “the world shining in the world”.
According to a source close to the investigation, Durov stressed his link to the French state head during interrogation.
He has the support of Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of Fellow Tech Tycoon and X, who posted comments under the hashtag #FreePavel.
Kremlin has warned France against Durov “in political oppression”.
Forbes magazine has estimated its current fate at $ 15.5 billion, although he proudly promotes the qualities of a ascetic life that involves ice bath and does not have to drink alcohol or coffee.
By arresting Durov, the French authorities dived the headlong in a terrible debate on online free speech online.
Some said that Durov should not be held responsible for the misuse of the stage, while others have reported that Durov may have done well on himself.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
