He could face charges of complicity in the crimes of terrorism, drug trafficking, complicity, fraud, money laundering and pedophile content.
Pavel Durovco-founder with his brother Nikolai of the messaging platform Telegramwas arrested this Saturday as he got off his private plane in the Paris-Le Bourget Airport.
The Russian businessman arrived in Paris from Azerbaijanalong with his bodyguard and a woman. There was a search warrant in France.issued by the juvenile office (OFMIN) of the French National Directorate of Criminal Investigation on the basis of a preliminary investigation.
This way, He was arrested as soon as he arrived at the airport which is located northwest of the French capital. The courts argue that the 39-year-old Russian’s lack of cooperation and moderation leads to complicity in the crimes of drug trafficking, pedophilia and fraud: “Pavel Durov will ultimately end up in pre-trial detention. On his platform, he allowed countless crimes and misdeeds to be committed, which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate with. [con las fuerzas del orden]”, they assured.
He is expected to appear before an investigating judge on Saturday evening in Paris for a subsequent indictment on a series of charges of terrorism, drug trafficking, complicity, fraud, money laundering, pedophile content, among others, on Sunday.
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Who is Pavei Durov?
Pavei spent part of his childhood in Italy, where his father was pursuing his PhD in philosophy. The family returned to Russia in 2001, when the Russian businessman was beginning his career as a philosophy major at St. Petersburg State University. He later trained to become an interpreter and translator. At this time he created an online library so that his classmates could share notes and books.
His partner, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, saw the potential of what Pavei had done and raised the money to expand the project, giving birth to VKontake (VK)Like Facebook, the social network started out as a student-only site in 2006. A year later, its site already had 3 million users, and today it is the most popular site in Russia and other European countries, with 100 million active users.
The social network’s growth was constant, but its abrupt exit was due to Russian persecution. Pavel claims that his company had been taken over by allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had gathered 88% of VK’s shares. Durov sold his shares for around $300 millionwhen he left his native country in 2014.
Pavei Durov created Telegram a few months before going into exilein August 2013. The entrepreneur said: “I created Telegram so I could communicate with my brother and the people around me without fear of being spied on.” Today, the app has 900 million users and is available in more than 20 languages.
What is Pavel Durov’s net worth in 2024?
The Russian entrepreneur is also passionate about cryptocurrencies, in 2018 he tried to launch the Gram cryptocurrency but was not very successful. Still, he is known for accumulating a large amount of Bitcoins. These virtual currencies are coupled with his fortune reaching 15.5 million dollars according to Forbes magazine.
Source: Ambito
