“NEAR TOTAL ABSENCE”
Durov left Russia a decade ago as he was setting up Telegram amid an ownership squabble concerning his first project, the Russian social network VKontakte.
But his departure from Russia was reportedly not an abrupt exile: according to the Vazhnye Istorii news site, citing leaked border data, he visited the country more than 50 times between 2015 and 2021.
Durov, who has been based in Dubai in recent years, arrived in Paris from the Azerbaijani capital Baku and was planning to have dinner in the French capital, a source close to the case said.
Telegram has positioned itself as a “neutral” alternative to US-owned platforms, which have been criticised for their commercial exploitation of users’ personal data.
It has also played a key role since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, used actively by politicians and commentators on both sides of the war.
The Paris prosecutor said that the French judicial authorities had been made aware of the “near total absence of a response” from Telegram to requests from the authorities and had first opened an investigation in February 2024.
Source: CNA
