“NEAR TOTAL ABSENCE”
Durov left Russia a decade in the past as he was organising Telegram amid an possession squabble regarding his first challenge, the Russian social community VKontakte.
However his departure from Russia was reportedly not an abrupt exile: in accordance with the Vazhnye Istorii information web site, citing leaked border knowledge, he visited the nation greater than 50 instances between 2015 and 2021.
Durov, who has been based mostly in Dubai in recent times, arrived in Paris from the Azerbaijani capital Baku and was planning to have dinner within the French capital, a supply near the case mentioned.
Telegram has positioned itself as a “impartial” different to US-owned platforms, which have been criticised for his or her business exploitation of customers’ private knowledge.
It has additionally performed a key function since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, used actively by politicians and commentators on either side of the warfare.
The Paris prosecutor mentioned that the French judicial authorities had been made conscious of the “close to complete absence of a response” from Telegram to requests from the authorities and had first opened an investigation in February 2024.