Reuters reported that this Saturday evening Pavel Durov, the popular founder and CEO of Telegram, has been detained by French authorities when, at around eight o’clock in the afternoon, he proceeded to disembark from his private jet, which had landed at Paris-Le Bourget airport, one of the fields in the French capital’s sphere of influence. The immediacy of the arrest shows that the country’s authorities were previously alerted to the flight and that the legal process surrounding it has already begun.

According to sources cited by the agency, the cause of the arrest is an investigation by the French police, currently in the preparatory phase, which focuses on Telegram’s lack of moderationand how this has resulted in the service being used to practice many illegal activities, from money laundering to distributing CSAM (child sexual abuse material) in pedophile communities.

The French authorities would, of course, issue this warrant not only for the use of the telegram for certain crimes, but also (and mainly) for lack of cooperation in various investigations related to them. As this is a preliminary investigation, there are still no firm charges against Durov, although the fact that he has been detained leads us to believe that the police investigation is already at a fairly advanced stage and therefore has the legal support necessary for his arrest .

In the first reaction, some voices began to point to the Russian origin of Telegram and Durov as the initiator of this police operation, but in this regard it is important to remember that The headquarters of the service moved to Dubai 10 years agoafter Durov fell out with Russian authorities over his refusal to censor opposition content to Vladimir Putin, in another case of strained relations between the Telegram creator and the Russian executive. Something that, however, did not prevent several Russian politicians and diplomats from criticizing this procedure of the French authorities.

That is expected Durov’s announcement will take place today, Sundayhowever, we don’t know if, depending on his outcome, his detention will end (at least temporarily) or if it is possible that the body of evidence and testimony will be used to keep him in custody.

This is not the first time that Telegram has had problems due to insufficient cooperation with the authorities. As you surely remember, The Spanish National Court issued an order to block the service in our country last March, although it is true that the measure was later deemed unreasonable and therefore did not enter into force.

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